Scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life” / Credit: RKO Radio Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
St. Louis, Mo., Dec 24, 2022 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Fire up your favorite streaming service, and there’s no shortage of Christmas movies for you to snuggle up with this year. But if you’re a Catholic parent looking for a classic Christmas movie — especially a classic that’s appropriate and enjoyable for the entire family — here are some ideas:
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
Does this movie really need an introduction? Severely underappreciated in its day but gaining status as one of the most perennially rewatched Christmas movies of all time, “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the epitome of classic Christmas movies.
It’s the story of a smart and ambitious small-town guy, George Bailey, who for a variety of reasons never manages to escape his provincial life and travel the world like he had always planned. When a seemingly insurmountable disaster besets George on Christmas Eve, he wishes he had never been born — a wish that, thanks to a friendly angel named Clarence, suddenly comes true. It’s only after this heavenly intervention that George realizes how important and yes, wonderful, his “ordinary” life truly was. (Try not to shed a tear during the final scene. I dare you. I always do!)
George’s lesson is a lesson for us all.
The director, Frank Capra, was Catholic and his faith shines through in this film (even if some elements, like the depictions of angels, are more poetic than they are theologically sound).
A famous quote is attributed to Capra: “My films must let every man, woman, and child know that God loves them, that I love them, and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to love each other.”
Rated: PG
Where to watch: Streaming on Prime Video, or available to rent from iTunes, Google Play, and others
2. A Muppet Christmas Carol
It hasn’t been around for quite as long as “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but if at this point you still haven’t seen this beloved movie… What are you waiting for? This is, quite simply, the definitive film adaptation of a classic novel, and in the 30 years since it came out, it has itself become a classic.
This movie features the fun and witty Muppets you know and love playing Dickens’ characters with colorful gusto alongside a stoic Michael Caine, who turns in a genuinely compelling performance as the miserly Scrooge. Despite some predictably silly shenanigans throughout, few adaptations of Dickens’ work contain so many direct quotes from the book, and it makes for a genuinely moving film.
Of course, the story of “A Christmas Carol” contains few, if any, explicit mentions of Christ’s birth as the reason for the season. But the themes contained in Dickens’ ghostly tale — including care and concern for others, especially the poor — are vital to meditate on this time of year.
Be warned: You’re sure to be singing the songs from this movie for many Christmases to come! (“It’s in the singing of a street corner choir…”)
Rated: G
Where to watch: Streaming on Disney+, or available for rent from Prime Video, iTunes, Google Play, and others
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas
Commissioned by the Coca Cola Company, most of the people involved in creating the Peanuts Christmas special — the first TV adaptation of Charles M. Schulz’s smash-hit comic strip — thought it would be a total failure. Instead, they created a classic. Vince Guaraldi’s music alone is enough to make this worth an annual rewatch.
The special’s use of humor to lampoon the “commercialization” of the holidays serves as a great reminder to all of us to step back from the nonessential elements of the Christmas season and to focus on what truly matters: Christ’s birth.
Even in the 1960s, public displays of religion on network television were rare. But the Nativity story, recited in all its glory by the cerebral Linus, is the crux of the special and fills the melancholic Charlie Brown with a radiant — and infectious — joy.
Good grief!
Not rated
Where to watch: Streaming on Apple TV (for free Dec. 22 through Dec. 25 only)
4. White Christmas
A true Christmas family classic, “White Christmas” is about as old-school cinema as you can get, if you’re into that kind of thing. The musical numbers are witty and memorable, the dance routines are impressive, and the nostalgia factor — well, that’s off the charts. Featuring the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby and the hilarious Danny Kaye, the movie follows the pair — old war buddies turned entertainers — as they fall in love with a pair of singing sisters and follow them to a Pine Tree, Vermont, inn for the holidays. There they plan and execute a special Christmas event as a surprise to offer love and support to their former commanding officer, who now owns the floundering inn.
“White Christmas” may not be spiritually deep, but it has many positive themes throughout. Kids may not understand all the intricacies of the plot, but they’ll enjoy the Technicolor and the dancing.
Rated: TV-PG
Where to watch: Streaming on Netflix, or available for rent from Prime Video, iTunes, and others
5. The Sound of Music
This may seem like an unconventional choice, but hear me out. This timeless classic, packed with some of the best and most singable songs in all of cinema, takes place in summer, that’s true, and there’s no mention of Christmas. But it’s packed with joy and positive themes — including familial love, obedience, and resistance to evil. Plus, I’m certainly not the first person to point out that lyrics like “snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes” and “brown paper packages tied up with string” can’t help but conjure images of Christmas.
Beyond that, here is a movie that truly celebrates the Catholic faith. True, much of the storyline revolves around Maria leaving her life as a religious sister — but she does so because she’s found a new vocation as a mother to the Von Trapp children and as a loving companion to the formerly strict and jaded Captain Von Trapp. The scene where the couple wed in a beautiful Catholic cathedral is awe-inspiring unto itself.
Admittedly, part of the reason “The Sound of Music” stands out in people’s minds as a Christmas movie is the fact that ABC has aired the movie on cable close to the holidays every year for the past 20 years. The movie’s “universal themes of love, family, and overcoming hardship in the face of adversity are exactly what we’re all thinking about over the holiday season,” according to the channel’s programming executive. I’m inclined to agree!
Rated: G
Where to watch: Streaming on Disney+, or available for rent from Prime Video, iTunes, Google Play, and others. Airing on ABC Dec. 18 at 7/6 Central.
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Build the wall on the north side of the church’s property. Let it deal with Mexico directly.
CCC
1909 Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense.
It seems to me that while the Church ignores LGBT degeneracy and abortion laws, including public officials and politicians who are Catholic, and support ‘worldly’ licentiousness it has now allied itself with socialists within the Democratic Party who have us destroy our American Culture and Catholic Culture to accommodate the will of the far left. If they Church cared for our security they would support the government in securing our borders and protecting our society from cultural genocide. But then again, since Vatican II, the Church seems hell bent on committing Catholic Cultural suicide so this comes as no big surprise. And the USCCB thinks that we should send them money and support our dioceses as we pay off victims of clerical sex abuse and work in league with the most radical of the leftists at home and in the UN. They might want to just be quiet and teach the Catechism: the WHOLE Catechism.
I wonder if Trump will ever acknowledge what a bad idea it was to campaign for the border wall and promising that Mexico would pay for it, an estimated $30 billion? Mexican President Pena Nieto and former president Fox vehemently opposed Trump’s wild idea. Currently, Trump has placed the financial burden on the American taxpayer. Yet, even with all his lies and failed promises he got elected.
After Trump insulted the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau at the G7 meeting Trump might consider building a northern wall separating Canada and the US that is much longer and much more expensive.
The US has the most generous immigration policy on the planet: https://www.immigroup.com/news/top-10-immigration-friendly-countries
Along with our generous (legal) immigration policy we are also the most generous country with foreign aid and disaster response around the globe.
So in addition to this, people like you seem to think that open borders and illegal immigration is some kind of right without looking at what that means for the future of US going forward. Are we to take in as many immigrants as there are in the world since we have the most to offer? We give welfare, housing subsidies, health care, tuition and child care services all at the expense of the working stiff who is being displaced by a literal flood of illegal immigration. If it is controlled then we can monitor and know who is coming into our country which is the right of any nation and we can also monitor their health and other problems which may put the people of this country at risk. I wonder how many billions of dollars that works out to be . . . and it is ongoing? I also wonder why Spanish speaking South Americans march right past all their neighbors claiming that the seek asylum when they could find asylum in other Spanish speaking neighbors and not undertake such a long a treacherous journey. It is obvious that they are receiving help and are being encouraged to march across a number of countries to reach the Mexican border and we know that George Soros and his groups are funding this along with MasterCard. http://whatisupwiththesynod.com/index.php/2018/11/08/raped-a-man-attacked-police-demanded-the-state-give-him-a-wife-pakistani-judged-a-psychopath/
So is it such a bad idea to try to stop what may turn into cultural genocide? You may not care a wit about the future but some of us do and some of us would rather help these people in their struggle against their own totalitarian governments. You don’t appreciate your liberty unless you fight for it and win it yourself. You can’t steal somebody elses freedom. We paid with our blood and we should be able to protect what we gained with our blood as well even though it would be much nicer if we simply build a wall and prevent illegal trafficking. Do you feel comfortable with the mules who smuggle drugs and humans over the border as well? Just wondering. That is why we have a legal way to immigrate and why it needs to be enforced.