My Favorite Time of Year – What I watch

Love it or not, Christmas is here. And one of the things I love doing is watching Christmas movies. Here’s a few of mine. Some you’ve heard of. Some you never have.

.1: MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR – Starring Henry Winkler, Booke Burns, Warren Christie – This one is one of those films I watch every year. First the highlights. Winkler plays Uncle Ralph, a retired, windowed police officer journeying to spend Christmas with his Neice (who he thinks of as a daughter) and her son. Enroute, he encounters Morgan Derby (Christie), a world traveler who has a resume a hundred pages long (to include chef). Despite serious differences, these two men become friends. When Morgan can’t reach his destination due to winter storms, he stays a few nights with Ralph and his niece (Burns). Romance, of course, ensues between Christie and Burns.

The interplay between the three stars is fun to watch and an absolute delight.

One of the main reasons the film makes my list of must watch movies is Winkler. Basically, the character is the Fonz only older and looking back on life. He’s fun, a little rough around the edges, but someone you’d want as a friend.

.2: SILVER BELLS – Starring Bruce Boxleitner, Bridgett Newton, Antonio Fargas – Christmas is a time of year when a mirror is held up to us. The season prompts us to be a little nicer, a little more giving, and if we see in the mirror that we’re not that person, it can be upsetting. Or transforming. Boxleitner (one of my fav actors) is a sportscaster obsessed with winning and being the top of the heap. This gets him in trouble when he assaults a referee at his son’s game. The courts sentence him to ring a bell for the Salvation Army (and he manages to mess that up).

It’s the transformation of the man that makes this fun to watch. And we get affirming messages of God’s Love for us and what’s expected of us.

.3: A PRINCESS FOR CHRISTMAS – Starring Katie McGarth, Sam Heughan, Roger Moore: The inclusion of this film will probably mean I have to turn my man card in. Truth be told, I’m a sap for a boy meets girl and falls in love film. And when the girl is an ordinary girl from Buffalo and the guy is a prince, bring it on. But while that’s the delightful story that frames this, it’s Roger Moore that makes the film for me. I’ve been a James Bond fan since the old Connery days. When Moore took on the character, I really started watching the movies for the girls, not the actor.

When it comes to Moore, I always suspected that there was a good actor in there trying to get out and Bond didn’t let him out.

It was one of his last roles that convinced me that he was really good. He shed the James Bond image and became someone relatable. He plays a rich aristocrat with old money and old-world manners and a way of thinking that has caused him more grief than he really wishes to admit.

It’s in many ways, a story of reclaiming what was lost and redemption.

.4: THE HOMECOMING – Starring Richard Thomas, Patricia O’Neal: A Christmas movie set in the middle of the Great Depression, it involves John-Boy embarking on a Christmas Eve odyssey to find his overdue father. A good, heartwarming story about Christmas, love, and the people who make up a community.

I like this movie so much; I own both the novel it was based on (a sequel of sorts to Spencer’s Mountain) and the DVD.

This movie became the pilot for a little series called The Waltons. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Of course, add A Christmas Story, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, a billion different version of Scrooge, and The Grinch and my Christmas cup runneth-over.

But then, everyone’s seen those last ones.