What’s your favourite Christmas film?
J asked me this yesterday and it’s such a difficult question because you could pick so many for a number of different reasons.
There’s the sheer stupidity of Home Alones 1 and 2 – I mean who forgets a whole child. No matter how late you are who doesn’t turn round for a brief second and say ‘Oh you know that youngest child we have, is he here?’
How does a child get on to a plane on his own as well (the 2nd one.) I struggled getting a bag of maltesers and my phone onto a flight from Turkey once.
There’s also the unbelievable nature of films like Jingle all the Way and the Santa Clause. Perfect in their own right as funny Christmas films and I love them both, but firstly, a guy can’t just become Santa Claus – surely it takes years of specialist training before you get a gig like that. Plus he didn’t even have to interview – I wish I could get a job that easily.
Secondly and ‘Spoiler Alert’ but how does that kid in Jingle all the Way not realise that his Dad is Turbo Man? It’s his Dad for crying out loud, how can you not realise it’s your own Dad?
To be fair one Christmas when I was about the same age I swore blind that I had been visited by Santa. For years I carried it with me that he’d been and he’d dropped off some Ghostbusters or Ninja Turtle toys and then left. I kept that with me until I was about 16 when I was telling someone and said: ‘and my Dad definitely was there when it happened.’ He overheard and said: ‘Yeah but was I Gareth, was I?’ So I didn’t recognise my own Dad either.
For me my favourite Christmas film is Love Actually. So much about it is so heart-warming and lovely and oh so Christmassy.
I like the fact that most of the stories turn out well as well, being the old romantic that I am.
From December 1 we line all of our Christmas DVDs up in the cabinet and watch them in order of Christmas strength. So Elf and Grinch stay to the end and one of the less Christmassy ones goes first, ease yourself in to it.
This year though, despite having a whole catalogue on Sky, we’ve still stayed loyal to our DVD collection – well, it’s tradition isn’t it?
But for now, let me just say, without hope or agenda, just because it’s Christmas, and at Christmas you tell the truth – I love a happy ending.