Happy Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas, everyone! Like many of you, I’m not traveling anywhere this Christmas… it’s just too cumbersome to plan for traveling, even domestically, given this Omnicron surge. Basically the pandemic is far from over, and you know what, I’m feeling blessed that my hubby and I are in good health and we have roof over our heads … things we should never take for granted at any time, but especially these days.
Well, I’m taking a bit of a break from review writing this weekend and I thought I’d post the last Music Break post for the year. I grew up listening to Christmas music as my late mom had piles of Christmas CDs around the house. Hey, it doesn’t even have to be December to appreciate great Christmas songs.
So let me highlight some of my favorites, both from classic and contemporary movies that never fail to put me in the Christmas spirit!
HOME ALONE 2 – Somewhere in My Memory
Well, since I just saw John Williams in concert this past Fall, we’ve got to start with one of the maestro’s best and most enduring Christmas scores. I’m gonna pretend there wasn’t a remake of Home Alone that exists today… I think the first two Home Alone are as perfect a family Christmas movie as you get.
The one song that stuck with me forever is this lovely, heartwarming song that appears in a scene when Kevin is walking on a Wintry suburban street and saw a family gathering through the window and he misses his family. We all miss our loved ones at Christmas… so this song always hits me hard year after year.
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ELF – Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Elf is one of my fave Christmas comedies and there’s something so goofy yet innocent about this oversized green elf in this fish-out-of-water story. Like Kevin in Home Alone 2, Will Ferrell‘s character too is lost in New York. Zooey Deschanel has such a gorgeous voice! She’s singing Baby, It’s Cold Outside in this clip, one of the three songs she performed in this movie. I love this song and the duet is pretty cute, though I probably would totally freak out like her too if I saw a man sitting in the bathroom while I was showering!
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LAST CHRISTMAS – Last ChristmasÂ
I just saw this movie last year and though it’s not perfect, it’s not as bad as the critics made it out to be. The London setting itself is absolutely adorable. The movie’s got its charm and Dame Emma Thompson wrote a bittersweet love story inspired by the classic song by WHAM! As an 80s kid and a big fan of George Michael, it’s one of my all time favorite Christmas songs. I thought the ending with Emilia Clarke dressed as an elf singing the song is a lovely and sweet finale.
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SCROOGED – Put A Little Love In Your HeartÂ
I actually saw this 1988 modern-day retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol not that long ago. Bill Murray is perfect as Scrooge, this time portrayed as a selfish and callous TV executive. After being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, he’s transformed into a kinder man in a rousing finale. I love this song, sung by Annie Lennox and Al Green, which became a huge hit around the world. Even though it wasn’t an original song written for the movie, the lyrics suits the story so perfectly.
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White Christmas – Irving Berlin
White Christmas is the quintessential classic holiday song and one of my personal favorites, but I didn’t realize it was featured in not one but TWO classic films.
Written by Irving Berlin, he won an Oscar for Best Original Song for the musical Holiday Inn in 1942, performed as a duet by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds.
Well, the song is featured again a decade later in 1954 in another musical White Christmas, also starring Bing Crosby, co-starring Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney. I haven’t seen the movie in its entirety, only clips of them, especially this one featuring the namesake song.
Apparently this movie is neither a sequel nor a remake of Holiday Inn as the storyline and characters are completely different. Both have scenes during Christmas Eve however, but White Christmas‘ setting is around WWII.
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FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
Merry Xmas Ruth. E! said that Last Christmas is one of the worst Xmas movies ever. BULLSHIT! I thought it was alright and I loved the sing-a-long at the end w/ a cameo from Andrew Ridgeley. I have that song in my Xmas playlist along with many others plus a few comedy bits and such.
Oh come on, it’s definitely not the worst Christmas movie ever. There are thousands of Hallmark-type holiday movies that are waaaay worse. Yes that sing-along scene is adorable and man that song is SO timeless!
Exactly. There are worse movies and some of them starred Tim Allen who tends to make the worst Xmas movies ever. I had to endure a 24-hour loop of The Santa Clause 3 in the late 2000s on Starz! on Xmas one time. That was fucking evil.
Merry Christmas, Ruth!
Thanks! Have a blessed Christmas to you and yours as well.
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas from Meet Me In St Louis stands out to me. Last Christmas had so many problems, but Clarke was delightful.
Oh I love that song but I haven’t seen that movie. Now I gotta look up the Judy Garland version.
Merry Christmas, Ruth! I totally agree with all your songs picks, love them all. I think my very favorite though is John Lennon’s So This is Christmas:
Enjoy!
Oh I love this one!! I would’ve picked it if it’s featured in a movie 😉
Hope you and Ivan are having a great Christmas and New Year! I’m not traveling anywhere either, just got my booster shot the other day. But I’ll be traveling more comes January and the rest of 2022, hopefully Covid will die down a bit. Been saying that for almost two years now, lol!
I love the first two Home Alone films, still watch the first one every other Christmas. The first Home Alone was the first official Christmas film that I’ve watched during the holidays. It was a huge box office hit and it didn’t come out on home video until the next holiday season of 1991.
As for my favorite Christmas song in a film, I’ll have to go with Let It Snow. It played at the end of Die Hard and it always get me in the mood for the holidays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lK_WdVqm3c. I remember I begged my dad to rent the first Die Hard film during the Christmas season of 1990 for me, it’s my family’s first Christmas year in the States. I don’t think it’s considered a “Christmas” film yet back then. Ha ha!
Hope things improve next year in terms of traveling, Ted! I would love to be able to visit other states, been so cooped up in MN for way too long
The first two Home Alone are really good indeed! Boy things took forever back then to get to home video doesn’t it, I guess that’s one of the good things about streaming services!
Oh I LOVE that song in Die Hard! I think whether or not it’s a Christmas movie is still debatable but I’m sure it’s a staple for people during the Winter holiday, ahah.
The funny thing is that I’ve never considered Die Hard a “Christmas” film. I just love watching it during Christmas because I first saw it during the holidays and it has become a tradition for me and some other people too. I think the film became a debate about being an official Christmas film or not around the mid 2000s when social media became a thing. Also, if I remember correctly Fox decided to promote the film as a “holiday” theme when they re-release it in theaters to promote Die Hard 4 back in 2007. I personally don’t care if it’s considered an official Christmas film or not, I just love the film and likes to watch it during Christmas season.
Yeah I don’t care if it’s a Christmas movie or not either, but it’s definitely a fun one to watch during the holiday as it’s a classic good vs evil where a regular joe triumphs over the bad guys! Of course the studio would capitalize on the holiday to promote their movie, nothing new there, ahah.
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I know it’s not in a Christmas movie, but couldn’t help including it anyway 😉
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