Feature

Love Actually: Consuming Christmas

The festive favourite that’s also incredibly divisive…

I love Christmas. I also love films. However, I tend not to like Christmas films. There are some exceptions to this personal rule of mine. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) is a beautiful drama, one that becomes all the more endearing with the annual re-watches. Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is another classic Christmas film that manages to charm and captivate over and over again. Meanwhile, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is modern phantasmagoria on celluloid, a magnificent blend of festive cheer, adventure, and Gothic psychedelia, all captured in jaw-dropping stop-motion.

However, many Christmas films feel more like an advertisement for the holiday season, with paper thin stories that would probably not be tolerated — let alone cherished — if it weren’t for the underlying Yuletide theme. These films are easy to watch specifically because they’re so simplistic, and since the themes surrounding Christmas (love, forgiveness, kindness, community) are self-evident, no work is done to weave them into the narrative. Such ideas are simply implied by the season and we are expected to do all the legwork.