Merry Christmas

As I write this it’s the week before Christmas and we’ve had a nice Christmas party, most of the presents are wrapped and under the tree, cards and gifts have been sent, and cookies are baking. Is this a movie? No, it’s my life.

But it wasn’t always my life. I’m in a new house and our first Christmas here is, like the house, a dream come true—but although I had great friends to spend my Christmases with, there were many holidays when I wasn’t this happy, when the holiday season weighed upon me and it was all too much to bear. And that’s when I turned to the movies.

I’d watch A Christmas Story [1983] to remember what Christmas growing up in the Midwest was like. Something like this contrasts nicely with In Bruges [2008] which gives us two killers on assignment in this fairytale city at Christmas. Then there’s the nostalgic The Apartment [1960] with lonely, endearing Jack Lemmon and naïve, funny Shirley MacLaine trying to make their way in Manhattan at Christmas. And good old Die Hard [1988] with Bruce Willis just trying to survive to see Christmas. Don’t forget Holiday Inn [1942] and White Christmas, [1954] two decades-old musicals that are still pretty fresh today [except, of course, for some of the racial stereotypes]. Both involve performers opening up an inn out in the country and people coming from the big city to see their shows… as if you could actually make a living with this sort of enterprise… but both movies are so much fun they’ll distract you from logical questions. The Holiday [2006] deals with lost love during the holidays in a fun way. And I’m a sucker for Love Actually [2003] which shows us many stories [perhaps one too many] happening at Christmastime that remind us of the highs and lows and surprises that Christmas can bring.

Holidays can be tough when you’re on your own or your family situation isn’t what you’d wish it to be… and that’s where movies can help. They can let you dream of what the perfect Christmas could be until your life evolves and you can live that perfect Christmas [took me a LONG time]. And, movies distract you from your personal traumas and let you get lost in someone else’s!

Of course, the quintessential Christmas movie—will there ever be a better one—is It’s a Wonderful Life. It reminds us that even when we’re as low as we think we can get, it’s important to remember that we’ve no idea how what we’ve done has touched others in ways we can’t even imagine. Did you know that when It’s a Wonderful Life came out it was a flop, not even making back its budget? And before that it was a short story called The Greatest Gift—a short story that its author, Philip Van Doren Stern, couldn’t find a publisher for, and he himself was an editor, so he knew where to look. He decided to send the story out in his family’s Christmas card to about 200 people in 1943.

Isn’t that something. What we now think of as one of the classic films of all time started out as a failure as a short story and as a film. Think about it—what if Stern had taken the rejection of his short story to heart and just put it in a drawer?

We don’t know, this Christmas, what our life will be like next Christmas. So don’t forget that—Christmas is a time for wishing and hoping—why not? Why not imagine what you could do before next Christmas that could lead you to create something you can’t even fathom now?

I wonder what it will be…

Copyright © Diane Lake

25Dec16

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