Fun Christmas Movie Game

I was listening to this podcast called You Hate Movies (No, I don't; I love movies! - (it's tagline is "The podcast where casual moviegoers, film lovers, and cinephiles argue about movies")) and they were playing a game with Christmas movies where they would save one movie, thus having to "kill" the other one and therefore it would no longer exist in our world. It was a lot of fun as there was a lot of disagreements and arguments amongst everyone on the podcast (about seven people). So I thought I would give my own answers for the choices that were given. Some of them were quite easy and some (one in particular!) were really difficult to choose between.

So here we go:

1. White Christmas or It's a Wonderful Life - I have never seen the former and it's been a VERY long time since I've seen the latter. I would save It's a Wonderful Life due to it's cultural impact...you see way more homages to that movie.

2. Love, Actually or Just Friends - I've never seen Just Friends (didn't even know it was a Christmas movie!) and I love Love, Actually, so that one is a no brainer. Plus Love, Actually just oozes Christmas. 

3. Elf or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - This one was the most difficult for me. Everyone on the podcast said this was a "clear" winner, but I don't think so! They all thought Christmas Vacation should have been saved even though the girl given the question chose Elf.  I love both of these movies so much...they're both in my top five favorite Christmas movies of all time. Both of these movies make me laugh. While Christmas Vacation is my favorite of the Griswold movies, I have to give it to Elf because I quote it so much and I remember seeing it theaters (twice!) and just laughing my head off. But I really do love both of those movies. It would make me sad to live in a world with no Griswold Christmas movie.

4. The Santa Clause or Jingle All the Way - It's been a really long time since I've seen The Santa Clause and I don't think I would particularly enjoy it if I saw it again and you all know how I wasn't that crazy about Jingle All the Way. That being said, I'm going to have to give it to Jingle only because of the Minneapolis setting and for Phil Hartman. But I wish I could get rid of both of these movies and save Elf AND Christmas Vacation!

5. Gremlins or Krampus - I haven't seen Gremlins in a very long time and I've never seen Krampus, but I have to give it to Gremlins just for the nostalgia alone. Plus it has that weird scene (SPOILER ALERT!) where the girl tells that story of how she found out Santa Claus wasn't real when her dad broke his neck going down the chimney trying to surprise his kids as Santa and he died. Oh. My. God! What the ?  That is Gremlins, right? 

6. Four Christmases or Fred Claus - I haven't seen either of these, but I think I would save Fred Claus only because it sounds like a more interesting movie with Vince Vaughn playing Santa's brother. (As opposed to Vince Vaughn playing Reese Witherspoon's husband). I feel like if I were given a choice to watch either of those movies, I would choose that one.

7. The Family Stone or Love the Coopers - I have never heard of Love the Coopers so I choose The Family Stone by default, a movie which I've only seen once and don't remember much about it. 

8. A Christmas Carol or The Polar Express (both from Robert Zemeckis)  - I have never seen Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol, but I have always been a fan of the book, The Polar Express, and the train ride to the North Pole was pretty amazing. Some of the CGI in The Polar Express doesn't quite hold up, but for the most part, I did enjoy it.

9. Scrooged or A Muppets Christmas Carol - Well, seeing in my review of Scrooged, I mentioned that my favorite version of A Christmas Carol is A Muppets Christmas Carol, then I think you know what my choice is! Plus, I absolutely love this song:

10. A Christmas Story or Home Alone - This is no contest...Home Alone easily wins this for me. (And it won the round on the podcast). I get that A Christmas Story is a classic, and there are lots of funny moments, but I remember seeing Home Alone in theaters and I made my mom buy the VHS (heh) so I could watch at it my 11th birthday party (which is in September, mind you, so it didn't make any sense to watch a Christmas movie then!) I have a lot of nostalgia for Home Alone while I didn't really even remember when I was first introduced to A Christmas Story (probably one Christmas when it was shown on TBS 24 hours in a row! Well, I don't know when they started doing that...actually I had probably seen it before Home Alone even existed, but I just don't remember!) Plus, Home Alone is way more quotable: "Look what you did, you little jerk!" is a personal favorite of mine.