A View of The Holiday: The Good ...

The next couple of days (two? four? As many as I feel like?) I wanted to cover different aspects of our family's holiday time. Today I'm covering some good stuff I like to do during December. I always have to catch a few Christmas movies, but there are three that top my list. They are absolute must-sees every year. When I was growing up, we had to wait for them to come on the television, and my mom and sisters and I would have to stay up however late in order to see the movie. Now, thanks to DVD's, these movies are available for my viewing pleasure on my timetable. And I enjoy them every year.

The first movie I always watch is Christmas in Connecticut. Barbara Stanwyck plays Elisabeth Lane, a writer who has a regular column in a popular ladies magazine. Elisabeth writes about the best recipes and how to decorate your home for Christmas. She advises on marriage and on babies, and the circulation of the magazine goes up when Elisabeth announces she's having her own baby as well. Things could not be better for Elisabeth until her boss decides she needs to give an injured sailor a real Christmas in her country home. The only problem is, Elisabeth has no home in the country. Neither does she have a husband, a baby or the ability to cook. Elisabeth spends her holiday frantically trying to fool her boss and the sailor as to her true state. Things don't improve when she ends up falling for the sailor, who thinks Elisabeth is a married woman.

I also love watching Holiday Inn. Bing Crosby plays Jim Hardy, a showbiz guy who loses his fiancee to his best friend. So Jim decides to open up a club in Connecticut, the catch being that it is only open on holidays. He finds a beautiful woman to help with the singing and dancing. Then Jim's old friend Ted shows up, having been dumped by Jim's former fiancee. Ted falls for Jim's new woman too, and woos her with a movie offer from Hollywood.


Both of the above movies are great, but my all time favorite is White Christmas. Who can resist the singing of Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, as Bob Wallace and Betty Haynes? The two characters fall prey to the clumsy matchmaking attempts of his business partner (in search of "forty-five minutes all to myself") and Betty's younger sister. Along with the shenanigans of Phil Davis and Judy Haynes, there is the backdrop of the guys' attempts at helping an old army general make a go of his Vermont Inn. Gives me warm fuzzies just to think about it.

So that's my list. But what about you? What movies do you watch every year? Which ones are needed in order to make your holidays complete?