Each year, like clockwork, someone will mention that Die Hard is their favorite Christmas movie. The logic is sound, it’s a movie, set at Christmas. It’s not about Christmas, and the holiday setting doesn’t really play into the events in any significant way - to the point where, having watched Die Hard more than once, I still forget that it has any Christmas in it. That is partially the joke, but it’s partially the fault of the Christmas movie as a genre.
The problem with Christmas movies is they tend to be stuck telling the same set of stories. One is nativity story, about expecting parents having trouble booking hotel rooms before giving birth to the baby the holiday is named after. Perhaps this hits too close to home for viewers in a busy tourism season, since this is the least common of the lot. People also take their religion very seriously, so you might run into some trouble if you depict an action packed donkey chase in the final act. But then, there’s the whole business of the massacre of the innocents, so there is a dramatically justified reason for a donkey chase thanks to Matthew. I think one could easily make a good film on the subject, the inherent tension of a mother about to give birth in far from ideal circumstances is enough to build a film around, but it’s rare that anyone ever attempts it.
Another is the adventures of Santa Claus, where for whatever reason - illness, kidnapping, reindeer games gone wrong, his actual death at the hands of Tim Allen - Claus’ annual trip around the world is in jeopardy. This happens a lot, possibly because Santa Claus costumes are cheap and he’s been very lax about protecting his likeness and copyright. They often end with a previously unknown person having to be the man for a day, because Christmas must go on no matter what, and they all look strangely similar. Lots of people in funny hats, one white-bearded old man, several reindeer, surprising amounts of pine paneling, and at least one non-believer in a sensible dark green jacket. The list of contrivances to take the jolly old elf out of commission is long and varied, which makes me wonder if someone has a vendetta against the man. These movies are all weirdly similar and have the feel of films that were cranked out at a budget even Scrooge might think was a bit low.
Speaking of Scrooge, you have the final Christmas story, which is A Christmas Carol. Even when it’s not explicitly the story of Ebenezer Scrooge taking a trip through his memories to discover the error of his miserly ways - which has been remade at least a million times by now - it’s still made repeatedly. The story of a rich miser learning that he or she should be more selfless is something that has been made so often and in so many configurations that it has become a tired cliche.
They don’t always travel through time, or have elaborate dreams, or ghost friends that show them the error of those ways - though, of course, they often have at least one - the rich miser is a favorite villain in a Christmas story, and a rich miser learning about the value of family, charity, being nice to people once a year and so on is the favorite moral. We already have several million Christmas Carols at this point, at least one of which involves the Muppets, so we don’t need new ones telling the same story but with more cell phones.
When I think Christmas movie, I think one of these three stories, and about how so many are based off of the latter two. Then I become more sympathetic to the Die Hard fans. It’s not very much about Christmas, but at least when Hans Gruber learns his valuable lesson it’s through the magic of falling off an office tower, and instead of being the same obvious moral it’s a valuable lesson about crossing cops with nothing to lose, and how you shouldn’t do that. But I also think that we can do a lot with Christmas.
It’s a season with a great aesthetic - bright lights and snow look good on film - and there’s material in both the religious and secular sides of the holiday. We just have to try something fresh.
