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It’s the way I get choked up when Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street starts yelling “Stop the car, Uncle Fred, STOP THE CAR!”. And then, runs as fast as her little legs will carry her across the yard and into the house for sale that Kris Kringle has managed to produce. And breathlessly tries to explain to her panting and bewildered mother and step-father-to-be, how she showed this picture of her dream house to Kris, and how she had been disappointed and hadn’t believed because he hadn’t mentioned it when they had Christmas morning present exchange, and, and...even then Maureen O’Hara doesn’t really believe. Until they turn around and see Kris’s walking stick in the corner.
What gets to me is that Maureen had finally overcome her own personal wounds and doubts to tell her daughter that morning “sometimes faith means believing even when common sense tells you not to”....BWANHHANHHANH...can someone pass the tissues please?
For me, it’s the smell of onion and celery cooking for the stuffing, and the turkey roasting while Vince Guaraldi plays A Charlie Brown Christmas in the background. It’s sitting in the dark before I go to bed with a cup of tea and gazing at the pretty lights in the Christmas tree. It’s calling a friend of mine who absolutely hates Sleigh Ride by Johnny Mathis and when he picks up, gleefully singing along with Johnny at the top of my voice. It’s burning my own balsam and cedar candle by my bed as I read some of my favorite Christmas stories.
It’s the moment when Alistair Sim, in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, wakes up from his Christmas Eve spirit visitations to find that his heart, like the Grinch’s, had grown three sizes that night. Laughing hysterically so hard that he can barely catch his breath, he manages to call out “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school boy, I am as giddy as a drunken man. A Merry Christmas to everybody!” Ah, to be reminded that even the most hardened heart can transform...well, pass the tissues again please.
And I can’t forget my newest favorite Christmas movie, Love Actually. I love this movie because, although sappy in some respects, it also has some poignantly painful vignettes in it that give more than a passing nod to the realities of human behavior. But, London decorated in its Christmas best, Hugh Grant as an incredibly likeable Prime Minister who falls for a ‘chubby’ girl instead of some stick thin super model, Emma Thompson (I do so want Emma to be my friend, I do, I do!) as a slightly frumpy but sharp and sensitive middle aged woman, Liam Neeson as the best step-Dad ever, and Bill Nighy as the most likeable curmudgeonly washed-up rocker you can imagine....well all that, AND Colin Firth delivering the most humorous and touching marriage proposal you’ll ever hear. What more is there to make a great Christmas movie I ask you?
And, don’t even get me started on A Christmas Story, Gift of The Magi, The Nightmare Before Christmas or It’s a Wonderful Life.
Those are the things that make up Christmas in my mind, that make me feel a certain delicious way. I don't long for it all year long as I've heard some people wish for. I want it to stay special and, for me, that means having it just once a year for three or four weeks. Snow dreams. Rich redolent smells of food, tree, and candles. Reconnecting with family and friends at a festive time of year. Slowing down to bake home made goodies.
Now, THAT’S what I love about Christmas.
Allison Allen is the Founder of WomenBloom. Besides Christmas, she loves writing and likes to indulge herself in it when she can find the time (and sometimes even when she can't).
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