Merry Christmas, from our Standard family to yours
by Tracey Coveart/The Scugog Standard

In the spirit of Christmas past, present and future, we, at The Standard, sat down to discuss our favourite holiday movies and what makes them such a special part of our festive celebrations. We share our traditions with you here, in this feature article, as our way of wishing you the very best this holiday season. Whatever your favourite yuletide movie, we hope you enjoy it with your family this Christmas and with the ones you love for many Christmases to come.

Melissa Armstrong
My favourite Christmas movie is about an nine-year-old boy who somehow gets separated from his family at the airport and finds himself alone on a plane heading to New York City. Later on, he has to defend himself against idiotic burglars. Can you guess the name of my favourite holiday movie? Yup. It’s ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.’
_So what makes it so special to me?
_In fact, it’s not the movie itself that is special, but who I watch it with: Michael Armstrong, my big brother.
_Michael has played a serious big brother role in my life and I have always looked up to him. The truth is … it’s Michael’s favourite movie and he watches it over and over. Being his little sister, I watch it with him. I guess over time - because of the feelings I associate with it - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York has become one of my favourite Christmas movies, too.

Tracey Coveart
There is no competition for my favourite yuletide movie. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, that stop-motion animation special - with those fleecy little forest creatures, Yukon Cornelius, a Burl Yves snowman, a dental elf, a wide-eyed doe named Clarice and the terrifying, sinking Bumble with his gnashing teeth and rolling eyes - wins hands down. Although a close second would be ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ - I am a complete sucker for a good rhyming holiday special - Rudolph and his glowing red nose captured my heart at a very young age and he holds it still.
_So entranced was I with this deer’s magical misfit zero-to-hero story, that I produced, directed and acted in a production of the classic tale myself for our school Christmas assembly when I was just a keen little elementary student. I still remember the moral/ethical/sexual dilemma I faced when the boy I wanted to play Rudolph refused to join the cast unless he got to kiss Clarice, played by me. (The following year I wrote my own play, an original Coveart version of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas - about a homophobic father and a boy who asks Santa for a doll for Christmas - so there was no opportunity for any shenanigans.)
_Today, we own a DVD copy of Rudolph, so we can watch it all year round, but I try to restrict our viewing pleasure so it’s still special at Christmastime. Then, a week or so before Santa makes his global voyage, Stephie and I huddle on the couch and watch the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer from 1964, followed by the (not nearly as good) animated sequel from 1991, Rudolph and The Island of Misfit Toys.
_Truth be told, I am a fan of all the old stop-motion animation films by Rankin and Bass: Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Year without a Santa Claus, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year. The only one I can’t stomach is The Little Drummer Boy. There’s just something about a young lad orphaned - when he sees his family burned to death in their farmhouse by desert bandits - that kills the Christmas spirit long before the three wise men show up to teach young Aaron (by then a bitter and angry caravan performer) that love is stronger than hatred.
_I’ll stick to Rudolph. The ridiculing, the humiliation, the peer and parental rejection, the running away from home ... you know, the cheery stuff that Christmas is made of...

Rik Davie
My favourite holiday movie is probably a lesser known film and one that hasn’t received much airplay over the years. The plot is set just after World War II, when accommodation was at a premium.
_Aloyisius T. McKeever, a New York City hobo, makes his home in a boarded-up Fifth Ave. mansion, letting himself in the back door while its multi-millionaire owner winters in the South. McKeever winds up taking in a homeless ex-G.I., who has been evicted from his apartment building, and runaway 18-year-old Trudy ‘Smith’ who, unbeknownst to him, is the daughter of the home’s real owner.
_Soon they invite war buddies Whitey and Hank and their families to share the vast mansion with them, while they seek permanent homes of their own.
_The sub-plots are funny and the ending is ‘Christmas happy.’ If you get a chance, watch it ... or ‘Bad Santa’ with Billy Bob Thornton. That’s a good one too!!!

Katherine Duong
Although I wouldn’t peg myself as someone who has a great attachment to Christmas films, if I had to choose a favourite, it would be ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’
_Though the program’s sentiment of ‘the true meaning of Christmas’ is nice, it is really just the characters themselves and their humour that I love. Somewhere along my childhood, I acquired a Peanuts comic book, and soon thereafter became a fan (read: obsessed).
_I remember having my mother drive me to thrift stores so I could rummage the shelves in hopes of finding more Peanuts comics.
_In subsequent years, I managed to expand my collection with a number of old comics and VHS tapes of Peanuts television specials, kindly given to me by various family members.
_Admittedly, I am not as avid a fan as I was when I was younger, however, Charlie and the gang will always hold a special nostalgic spot for me at Christmastime and all year ’round.

Colleen Green
_My favourite holiday movie is ‘White Christmas,’ with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. I love musicals. I love the costumes. And watching White Christmas has become a family tradition in our home at Christmastime.
_We usually have it playing in the background while we put up and decorate our Christmas tree. We also have a plate of homemade Christmas cookies out to munch on and hot chocolate to drink.
_The movie, the treats and the tree are usually what starts off our Christmas season and they help to put us in the Christmas mood. Until we go through this special holiday ritual as a family, we don’t really feel very Christmassy.

Lisa Hadden
My favourite Christmas movie is Miracle on 34th Street. I love the part where Natalie Wood teaches Santa how to blow a bubble with bubble gum. It pops and makes a mess of his beard. I find it funny that he spends his time teaching her how to be a kid - and he learns something about being a kid, too.
_It’s just a good movie, and everyone lives happily ever after ... which doesn’t always happen in real life.

Victoria Ioannou
In my family, no Christmas is complete without watching, ‘A Christmas Story’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ on Christmas Eve. Although I don’t remember when or how this tradition started, it’s definitely one of the highlights of the holidays with my family.
_A Christmas Story is one of those movies that you can quote almost every line, but it never gets old. We can’t help but laugh every time Randi, dressed for the cold, complains “I can’t put my arms down!” and then wails like a fire truck or when Ralphie ends up looking “like a pink nightmare” thanks to an embarrassing Christmas present.
_Once the ending credits for A Christmas Story start to roll, it’s time to play It’s a Wonderful Life. Focused on the classic theme of being happy with what you have in life, this movie tugs at my mother’s heartstrings every time when Harry raises his glass to George and says, “To my brother George, the richest man in town.” It’s also a nostalgic moment of childhood innocence when Zuzu says “Look, Daddy! Teacher says that every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!”
_I’ve seen quite a few Christmas movies in my 17 years - the good, the bad and the just plain corny - but nothing can compare to our two family favourites.

Darryl Knight
I’m going to technically cheat on this question, but rest assured I have an explanation.
_I don’t have a favourite holiday movie in the traditional sense, although ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Christmas Vacation’ always seem to rope me in. No, my favourite holiday fare consists of the Rankin/Bass Productions Stop Motion Specials which aired between 1964 and 1974.
_I could not decide between ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,’ ‘The Little Drummer Boy,’ ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and ‘Year Without a Santa Claus’ so I grouped them all into one.
_Even though I have seen all of these specials countless times, it never really seems to feel like Christmas is approaching until I hear Yukon Cornelius explain that “Bumbles bounce,” until the Winter Warlock’s heart melts or until brothers Heatmiser and Snowmiser have their epic family feud.
_By this point I know all the lines and I know all the words to the songs and for me, at least - even after 28 years - these Christmas specials are just as much a part of the holidays as the sudden surge of senior citizens/expecting parents parking in those coveted spaces right by the mall door.

Anita Richardson
I really can’t decide which is my favourite movie. It’s either ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ with Natalie Wood or Dr. Seuss’ ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ (the animated TV special, not the live action movie starring Jim Carrey). Both are Christmas staples and have been since I was just a wee one. I watched these two movies with my daughter when she was young and now that I have a grandson, I am looking forward to Christmases when we three generations can sit down together and celebrate the season with these two holiday classics.

Nancy Schuyler
My favourite Christmas movie you ask? Well, I’m not so sure I have a ‘favourite’ as they are only on television one time a year and by New Year’s Eve I have already forgotten what they were about.
_Basically, they are all stories about miracles that happen at Christmastime. Do I believe in miracles? Sure. It’s a miracle I am talking about this now! It will be a miracle if the Leafs ever bring home the Stanley Cup ... without stealing it, I mean. Maybe I could just recite my favourite Christmas joke instead? Okay. No jokes. Geez.
_Although it’s not a movie, I think I’ll go with ‘Mr. Bean’s Christmas.’ No, not because it’s refreshing to have a man entertain you without saying a word (another miracle!), but because Rowan Atkinson is the only one who can pull off wearing a turkey on his head!
_Oh wait, that might have been the Thanksgiving episode. Rats, now I have to start again...

Gayle Stapley
My favourite Christmas movie is the old original black and white ‘A Christmas Carol,’ with Alastair Sim. Every Christmas Eve, as soon as the kids were old enough to sit on the couch and watch TV, the whole family would sit down together with a big bowl of popcorn and watch that movie.
_As the years went by, the kids could recite it word for word.
_After the movie ended, at about 10 p.m., the kids got to open one Christmas present before they went off to bed. That was our Christmas Eve tradition.

Tom Thekan
The best Christmas movie ever is ‘The Magnificent Seven.’ Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. Get the ‘yule’ connection?

Blake Wolfe
Despite my complaints that this movie is played way too many times throughout the month of December, I would have to say I hold a soft spot for ‘A Christmas Story.’
_I’m not usually one for holiday films, but A Christmas Story is among a handful of Christmas movies that I will actually make time for (the others being ‘Elf,’ the Jim Carrey version of ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ and, after curling up on the couch with a sick daughter last year, ‘The Polar Express’).
_Ralphie and company entered our lives by fluke in 1987, three years after the movie was originally released. My mom watched that afternoon television broadcast more intently than anyone else and, for numerous years after, would make a point of letting everyone know when Ralphie was making his annual visit so the time could be devoted to a family viewing.
_After mom broke down and bought a VHS copy, I would rewind and re-watch the film endlessly to see if Ralphie did in fact utter the F-bomb when he lost the bolts to the wheels of the family car and was forced to eat a bar of Lifebuoy soap as punishment.
It wasn’t until years later that I finally understood why mom enjoyed this film.
_Any kid from the 1950s growing up in a Great Lakes rust belt town would immediately recognize the setting. After this revelation, the film always reminded me of long-ago Christmas visits to Windsor, Ontario, where we’d spend the days between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31 with grandparents who didn’t have Nintendo.
_Twenty-four years after I first watched it, A Christmas Story is no longer just a quaint movie about some kid wanting to wake up to a Red Ryder BB gun under the tree.
_It wraps up the entire spectrum of conflicting holiday emotions in one neat little cult package - joy, longing, greed, guilt, remorse, disillusion and, ultimately, appreciation of the non-material things in life, like family.