December Top 5: Our Favorite Christmas Shows

At Christmastime, we Broads love to watch Christmas movies and specials.  It puts us in the mood for tinsel and trimmings, and there's nothing like the smiles we get from Ralphie, Miss Piggy, and Opus.  So for our December Top 5, we give you the Christmas shows that make the holiday for us.


Alexandria/Moira

1.  The Year Without A Christmas/A Christmas Story
2.  The Muppet Christmas Carol/It's a Wonderful Life
3.  A Wish For Wings That Work/The Bishop's Wife
4.  Scrooged/White Christmas
5.  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation/The Muppet Christmas Carol


 
1.  Alexandria:  When I was a child, my favorite Christmas cartoon wasn't Rudolph or Frosty but the one with the Miser Brothers-I'm Mr. Heat Miser; I'm Mr. Sun.  I'm Mr. Heat Miser; I'm Mr. Hundred and One.  I just loved those brothers!  As someone who hates the cold and snow, of course I liked the idea of a green Christmas, but the Freeze Miser was just fantastic too.  Still now, years later, I watch that cartoon and am taken back to when I was just a kid and the special aired each December on CBS. 

Moira:  "My father let out a string of profanity that hangs in a cloud over Lake Michigan to this day...Ralphie's father has always reminded me of my own father in many ways and makes this movie one of my all time favorites.  The narration captured the true excitement, humor, and childhood stress of the buildup to Christmas brilliantly. 

2.  Alexandria:  The Muppet Christmas Carol is my second favorite Christmastime show.  I just love the way this film treats the Dickens' classic.  Michael Caine is fantastic as Scrooge, and the muppets do an incredible job of bringing the story to life in a way only Jim Henson's muppets could. I've always loved that the Ghost of Christmas Present ends up looking like Santa Claus, and there are so many other parts of the movie I just love, such as when the clerks in Scrooge's counting house turn into islanders and sing "This is my island in the sun!" in response to Scrooge's threat after they complain about how cold it is inside and when Miss Piggy makes the toast to Mr. Scrooge, and their daughters sit on each side of her mimicking her, heads bobbing just like their mom's.  "To Mr. Scrooge...who I'm sure will be very merry indeed." 

Moira:  I first watched It's a Wonderful Life when I was around 10-12 years old, and it has been a favorite since.  It helps to put life in perspective. 

3.  Alexandria:  Not many people I know have even heard about my third favorite, A Wish for Wings That Work.  I remember seeing it only once, and thankfully, I had decided to tape (yeah, VHS days!) a bunch of Christmas specials for my daughter that year. (She's 21, so it's an old tape.)  But I still watch it each year and laugh at the incredibly dry humor of Berkeley Breathed.  Some of you may remember his comic strip, Bloom County (I think that's what it was named.).  From that came this holiday special featuring the penguin Opus and his one wish for some wings that work.  But it's not just Opus who makes this show.  There are Bill the Cat, who Opus explains had his brains replaced by tater tots a while back; Truffles, a pig who is having an identity crises and thinks he's a rhinoceros or a water buffalo; three ducks who act like the Three Stooges; and a host of other characters, including one voiced by Robin Williams, a kiwi whose wife Delores has left him for another bird with bigger wings.  "Oh my Delores!" Enjoy a wonderfully quirky take on the Christmas season!

Moira: The Bishop's Wife is another of my all-time favorites.  Carey Grant and David Niven produce the dry humor I find hysterical all while playing a priest and an angel.  Once again, this is a movie to refocus perspective. 

4.  Alexandria:  Another take on the Dickens' classic comes in at my number four favorite Christmas show.  Scrooged is just a wonderfully modern take on A Christmas Carol, and it never fails to put me in the Christmas spirit.  I like that this, just as A Muppet Christmas Carol and the original Charles Dickens' novel stresses a theme that it's never too late to make the necessary changes in your life to alter your future for the better. 


Moira:  White Christmas-Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye in a musical...what's not to like?


5.  Alexandria:  Rounding out my top 5 is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  To me, this film is a favorite because it covers all the extremes of the holidays:  exterior illumination, family, and neighbors.  What a combination! But ask anyone who's been around a Clark Griswold type at the holidays what this time of year is like and they'll tell you the movie isn't that much an exaggeration.  But for the Clarks of this world, I say even the overzealous deserve happiness and a damn bonus on Christmas! 

Moira:  Michael Caine makes an excellent Scrooge, and muppets have been a favorite of mine since childhood. It's also a musical, making The Muppet Christmas Carol a double winner for this Broad.








From both the Brazen Broads, we wish you a wonderful Christmas and a joyous New Year!