![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Tis the time of year...
Dec. 21st, 2010 01:25 pmFor Christmas Specials and movies! :D
Seriously, my list of Christmas-themed things to watch has really grown in the last couple of years. It all goes back to childhood, really, where every year my family watches four holiday specials:
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. Garfield's Christmas Special
3. Frosty the Snowman
4. Mickey's Christmas Carol
We used to watch them all off of tapes we recorded from TV, complete with old commercials and bits of the specials missing. XD Slowly, we've finally gotten copies of those all on DVD by now. Though I definitely miss seeing the Seven-Up commercial.
Other specials that I only started watching a year or two ago include:
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
6. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Grinch is the animated one - not that live-action Jim Carrey monstrosity. Rudolph I only started after buying a horde of plush reindeer when I worked at CVS. Rudolph was one of them, naturally.
As far as full-fledged movies go, I like to watch the following every year:
7. Beauty and the Beast - The Enchanted Christmas
8. It's a Wonderful Life
9. The Muppet Christmas Carol
It's funny, because I actually hated Beauty and the Beast - The Enchanted Christmas when it first came out in 1997, but over time it's really grown on me. It's a Wonderful Life is really a classic, and Mom and I cry at the end EVERY TIME. It's just such a touching scene.
The Muppets got Michael Caine to play Scrooge! Michael Caine! It's a great musical version of a Christmas Carol, and the large-scale Muppets they use for the three ghosts are just fantastic.
More recently, I added the two Barbie Christmas movies to my yearly lineup.
10. Barbie in the Nutcracker
11. Barbie in a Christmas Carol
After seeing the Nutcracker ballet in SF, I picked up the Barbie version, which tries to fill out the story a little bit. It was the first Barbie animated movie as well, and it's always interesting to see how far the animation in those productions has come in almost ten years. Christmas Carol is a better movie, and I love the Victorian setting. Extra points for Barbie being dressed in the 2008 Holiday Barbie outfit during the beginning and ending sequences.
This year, I added two more movies.
12. He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special
13. Disney's A Christmas Carol
It was really fun watching the He-Man special after watching all of She-Ra this summer. Having the whole cast together really felt like a nice endcap. The plot is kind of ridiculous, but Skeletor really gets the best lines!
I have to admit I was skeptical about Disney's Christmas Carol - after all it was made by the same people who did the Polar Express, which I think is kind of boring. Plus the characters fall into the "Uncanny Valley" where they look just a little too real for animated characters, which makes them a bit creepy. The movie itself was good, but still fell prey to the Uncanny Valley a bit (though not nearly as bad as Polar Express).
Whew! That's more than I thought. Christmas really is one of my favorite times of year, and these specials really are a part of that. It's fun to have something you only watch once a year. :)
Anyway, what specials do you enjoy this time of year?
Seriously, my list of Christmas-themed things to watch has really grown in the last couple of years. It all goes back to childhood, really, where every year my family watches four holiday specials:
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. Garfield's Christmas Special
3. Frosty the Snowman
4. Mickey's Christmas Carol
We used to watch them all off of tapes we recorded from TV, complete with old commercials and bits of the specials missing. XD Slowly, we've finally gotten copies of those all on DVD by now. Though I definitely miss seeing the Seven-Up commercial.
Other specials that I only started watching a year or two ago include:
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
6. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Grinch is the animated one - not that live-action Jim Carrey monstrosity. Rudolph I only started after buying a horde of plush reindeer when I worked at CVS. Rudolph was one of them, naturally.
As far as full-fledged movies go, I like to watch the following every year:
7. Beauty and the Beast - The Enchanted Christmas
8. It's a Wonderful Life
9. The Muppet Christmas Carol
It's funny, because I actually hated Beauty and the Beast - The Enchanted Christmas when it first came out in 1997, but over time it's really grown on me. It's a Wonderful Life is really a classic, and Mom and I cry at the end EVERY TIME. It's just such a touching scene.
The Muppets got Michael Caine to play Scrooge! Michael Caine! It's a great musical version of a Christmas Carol, and the large-scale Muppets they use for the three ghosts are just fantastic.
More recently, I added the two Barbie Christmas movies to my yearly lineup.
10. Barbie in the Nutcracker
11. Barbie in a Christmas Carol
After seeing the Nutcracker ballet in SF, I picked up the Barbie version, which tries to fill out the story a little bit. It was the first Barbie animated movie as well, and it's always interesting to see how far the animation in those productions has come in almost ten years. Christmas Carol is a better movie, and I love the Victorian setting. Extra points for Barbie being dressed in the 2008 Holiday Barbie outfit during the beginning and ending sequences.
This year, I added two more movies.
12. He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special
13. Disney's A Christmas Carol
It was really fun watching the He-Man special after watching all of She-Ra this summer. Having the whole cast together really felt like a nice endcap. The plot is kind of ridiculous, but Skeletor really gets the best lines!
I have to admit I was skeptical about Disney's Christmas Carol - after all it was made by the same people who did the Polar Express, which I think is kind of boring. Plus the characters fall into the "Uncanny Valley" where they look just a little too real for animated characters, which makes them a bit creepy. The movie itself was good, but still fell prey to the Uncanny Valley a bit (though not nearly as bad as Polar Express).
Whew! That's more than I thought. Christmas really is one of my favorite times of year, and these specials really are a part of that. It's fun to have something you only watch once a year. :)
Anyway, what specials do you enjoy this time of year?
