What are you watching on "Little Christmas" - the 25th of each month (1 Viewer)

In 2014, starting in January, I started something I called "Little Christmas" on the 25th of each month. On that day of the month, I would listen to an album or two from my large Christmas music collection, read something Christmas-related from my Christmas book library, and most importantly, watch a movie on disc, tape, or PVR from my very large Christmas video collection. I have my favorites, of course, but my Christmas libraries are so large (and Christmas itself gets very busy) that I always feel that I haven't enjoyed them sufficiently during the season. I'm not sure why I love Christmas so much; we weren't wealthy, though we always had a big tree with plenty of lights and NOBODY went hungry. I think that probably the early and repeated exposure to "A Christmas Carol" (the book and the Alastair Sim film) gave me a taste for keeping the Spirit Of Christmas alive all year. I even do "Christmas In July" concerts, in addition to 30 years in a row of Christmas shows. Anyhow, I'm doing it again in 2015, and I hope others will do it too. Decorating is absolutely optional!

January 25th, I will be listening to "A Broadway Christmas" and "A Hollywood Christmas", two very fine and distinctive CD's produced by HTF's own Bruce Kimmel, he of the impeccable taste. I will be reading "Dickens Christmas" by Simon Callow, the actor and Dickens expert. And I will re-watch my recent DVD purchase of "Jingle Bell Rocks", a wonderful 2013 documentary about Christmas music collectors, and the Albert Finney musical "Scrooge" on Blu-Ray (the DVD has an overture that the Blu-Ray omitted, so I'll play it first). Have yourself a merry Little Christmas!

davidmatychuk said:

Have yourself a merry Little Christmas!

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...as per the version of the song on "A Hollywood Christmas" by the elusive Guy Haines.

Ha! I usually watch The Bishop's Wife once or twice during the summer, but I never make a special day of the 25th! I love your idea of setting aside the 25th though, because I have too many Christmas cds and dvds STILL wrapped in plastic.

The year goes so quickly for me, I save Christmas for after Thanksgiving, and even that can feel like burnout.

I'm not even to this "Christmas in July" malarkey the department stores throw at us every summer when we have three months of calendar-holiday withdrawal.

(I could barely get into a Christmas mood last December, since the snow held off till January. Up in the Northeast, it's snow or nothing, where holiday atmosphere is concerned.)


There's a satellite/Internet radio station that plays only Christmas old-radio episodes, and I might listen to that sporadically if I'm in the mood, but every month? That's just crazy talk.

I'll give you three months before you get sick of it.

It's crazy talk for sure, and some of my friends and acquaintances remain dubious too, but January 2015 will make 13 months so far for me. I found that the complete lack of a commercial aspect worked for me. So did the personal, meditative aspect. But I think it's no more for everyone than "Christmas 2" from "Santa Claus: The Movie" would ever have been.

F.Y.I. - here are some theatrical release dates (for any "Little Christmas" skeptics):


Holiday Inn: August 4, 1942

Christmas In Connecticut: July 20, 1945

It's A Wonderful Life: January 7, 1947 (wide release outside New York City)

[SIZE=14.4444446563721px]It Happened On Fifth Avenue: April 19, 1947[/SIZE]

Miracle On 34th Street: May 2, 1947

The Bishop's Wife: February 16, 1948 (wide release outside New York City)

We're No Angels: July 7, 1955

Gremlins: June 8, 1984

Lethal Weapon: March 6, 1987

Die Hard: July 20, 1988


Every month from January to August! As you can see, there is a rich history of seasonally inappropriate viewing of Christmas movies.

I never thought of doing this. It's funny, because my wife and I did not have time to watch all we wanted this past Christmas season, and it seems "against the rules" to watch them now. I like your idea of refusing to banish such entertainment to one month of the year.

This is 1) probably posted in the wrong forum and 2) loony.

The whole idea of "Every month on the 25th" makes it sound like paying the mortgage check.

I dunno, reducing Christmas to a series of old movies makes it seem like it comes from a store. Maybe, just maybe, Christmas is...a little bit more.


(Either that, or sounds like that old Disney place where they celebrated New Years Eve every Friday night.)

To quote the great Iowan journalist Harlan Miller: "I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month". He passed away in the 1960's, and had no foreknowledge of CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs, or Blu-Rays, otherwise he might have amended his famous quote.

I was just about to watch the Albert Finney "Scrooge" when I saw Vic Pardo on the "Christmas Shows" topic mention a 1954 "Ray Milland Show" Christmas T.V. episode that he'd never heard of. Neither had I, so I checked it out on YouTube. It was a terrific Little Christmas selection!


Here it is:

davidmatychuk said:

January 25th, I will be listening to "A Broadway Christmas" and "A Hollywood Christmas", two very fine and distinctive CD's produced by HTF's own Bruce Kimmel, he of the impeccable taste. I will be reading "Dickens Christmas" by Simon Callow, the actor and Dickens expert. And I will re-watch my recent DVD purchase of "Jingle Bell Rocks", a wonderful 2013 documentary about Christmas music collectors, and the Albert Finney musical "Scrooge" on Blu-Ray (the DVD has an overture that the Blu-Ray omitted, so I'll play it first). Have yourself a merry Little Christmas!

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And so I did! See you in February!

Okay, tomorrow night is Little Christmas Eve, so at some point after the early Canucks/Bruins hockey game I'll be watching the DVD of "Ebenezer", a 1997 frontier version of "A Christmas Carol" with the great Jack Palance. For Wednesday the 25th, the actual Little Christmas for February, I'll play the SACD of Rosemary Clooney's splendid 1996 "White Christmas" album, in surround sound, with special guests Michael Feinstein and Nick Clooney, I'll leaf through Jody Rosen's excellent "White Christmas" book (focusing on the song and its history), and I will watch the Blu-Ray of "Holiday Inn" and Disc 1 of the "Bing Crosby - The Television Specials Volume Two: The Christmas Specials" DVD set which contains his 1961 and 1962 Christmas specials, neither of which has more than a smattering of Christmas songs (which wasn't so unusual in those days) but both of which contain terrific entertainment by master entertainers. So that's my plan: no giftwrapping, no decorations, no goose, just a gentle reminder of why I love Christmas, ten months early.

That was nice. I think on March 25th I will go a bit more specifically Christmas with the video portion of Little Christmas, because that's kind of the point, but it was nice regardless. Little Christmas, like Christmas itself, is a work in progress! See you in March!

Little Christmas seems to arrive sooner and sooner each month, doesn't it? I'm still thinking about the literary and musical elements for March 25th, but from my PVR, I'll be watching "Invasion Of The Christmas Lights 3" (the European edition from 2011); on VHS, Bill Forsyth's "Comfort And Joy" (I've burned it to DVD but the whole VCR routine is fun); on Laserdisc, I'll spin the 1938 MGM "A Christmas Carol" (with the ever-controversial colourized Judy Garland "Silent Night" clip and the never-ported-over-from-laserdisc 1941 Tom and Jerry "The Night Before Christmas" cartoon among the special features); and on DVD (and on Little Christmas Eve), the extended full-screen version of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (not on the Blu-Ray). No Blu-Rays for me this month - in March, I'm having a Retro Little Christmas!

Retro Little Christmas for March was nice. Deliberately leaving Blu-Ray out of the mix did add a fun "archaic" quality to our viewing, at least in my mind. I also read selections from "An Atheist's Guide To Christmas", and played a couple of excellent BBC Music magazine CD's: "Christmas Around Europe" (mixed classical and ethnic selections) and "Silent Night" (a beautiful set of carols in David Willcocks' arrangements performed by Laudibus, the graduate chamber choir of Great Britain's National Youth Choirs). I think for April, my goal will be to come up with Christmas entertainment that can pass as non-Christmas entertainment, so as to give the Little Christmas nay-sayers nothing to moan about. See you in late April!

davidmatychuk said:

I think for April, my goal will be to come up with Christmas entertainment that can pass as non-Christmas entertainment, so as to give the Little Christmas nay-sayers nothing to moan about. See you in late April!

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Ignore the nay-sayers.

I know I'm jumping ahead, but I would start planning a huge Christmas In July celebration now. Maybe more of an extravaganza than the other little Christmases. Maybe some live entertainment, guest appearances of some of the actors from the movies you may show, and invitations to other HTF members!

Y'know, if you had a Little Birthday every month, I'd give you three before you got sick of it, and that's not even counting your friends.

Even as a kid, you only limited the half-birthdays to every six months, and the parents would barely celebrate that.