What is your favourite Christmas Film and why?

Every year a new Christmas film turns up on the TV. They all seem to follow the same pattern. They begin with a sadness. Someone loses their house, perhaps their family, through financial circumstances usually. There is a grumpy relative that likes to spoil everything for everyone, but it is all in glorius technicolour and the ending is a happy one. The miserables become happy, lost fortunes are found again and split familes are reunited.  The long lost son or daughter or whatever returns to the fold. Another sequence of Christmas kitsch leavs us holding a handkerchief to wipe the tears from our eyes, if we have not changed channels in between to watch a football match or a show with some singing and dancing.

And now you ask a golden oldie to choose? I have seen them all. I quite enjoyed The Nighmare Before Christmas, something completely different, and appealed to my strange sense of humour. However, the Christmas film winner of all time for me is “It’s a Wonderful Life” from 1946 with Jimmie Stewart. It is one of those good old time black and white films that pulls on the genuine heart strings. It is kitsch, but good old fashioned kitsch and I love it. As my dad would say, “they don’t make films like that any more”.

What is your favourite Christmas Film and why?