'Tis the Season...

We're just under three weeks to Christmas... or an even three weeks to Festivus if that is more your cup of tea... so I thought it would be a good time to let you all in on the things I watch pretty much every year to get into the Christmas spirit. Despite what a cranky, cantankerous bastard I am all year long, I do love Christmas and celebrating it with my family and friends. This is going to be another picture-heavy affair, I hope you enjoy these. No, I don't, I don't care, I enjoy them, that's all that matters. How's that for Christmas spirit! Now here, in no particular order, are the TV shows and movies that help me do that!

The Family Man

 
Yeah, I know. Nic Cage. It's incredibly hokey. And did I mention Nic Cage? But it's sweet and sentimental and funny sometimes too and I like it so shut up!

Bad Santa

Specifically the "Badder Santa" version. Absolutely hysterical.

Roswell Christmas Episodes

The very underrated Roswell had Christmas episodes in its second and third seasons, "A Roswell Christmas Carol" and "Samuel Rising." Each are incredibly sweet, well-written episodes that are full of the Christmas spirit, but "A Roswell Christmas Carol" is the better of the two.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Amends"

This third season episode is the only Christmas episode they ever did, a poignant story about redemption that is one of my favorite episodes of the whole series. Foreshadowing the series' biggest villains and the final season, laying the foundation for the "Angel" spin-off, and asking questions about whether we can ever really make up for the awful things we do... well, anytime it snows in California, you've probably got your answer.

Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol

Sure, I know it's not the only Doctor Who Christmas Special, but it's the only one that actually centers around Christmas, with the Doctor staging a Dickensian-style intervention on a Scrooge of his own, played by Michael Friggin' Dumbledore Gambon. This is the episode that finally got me to jump onto the Doctor Who bandwagon, and I can't wait for this year's "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," which is obviously an adaptation of...

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Sure, I know it's technically not Christmasy, but it feels like it to me. Leave me alone.

A Christmas Carol

Specifically, this...

and this...

...each for reasons that should need no explanations whatsoever.

The Lord of the Rings

Nothing to do with Christmas at all, I realize. And yet, because the movies came out in late December and I went to see them with my friends, my brain associates the trilogy with the Christmas season, so you can rest assured at some point in the next twenty days or so, I'll spend an entire day watching these three movies.

The Rankin-Bass Christmas Specials.

Any of them really, I love them all. But "A Year Without a Santa Claus" will always be my favorite because of Heat Miser and Snow Miser...

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I saved the best for last, and of course this is on the top of the list. Anyone who isn't instantly overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit after watching this just has no soul. By the way, it's going to be on ABC in about 12 minutes. How's that for Christmas synergy?