With Christmas right around the corner, I’ve been hearing debates all the time about the best Christmas movie, drink, and festivity. The best drink to have during Christmas time is without a doubt hot chocolate, and the best festivity is receiving gifts. However, the best movie is harder to say. There are so many Christmas movies that hold meaning for so many people. Everyone has that one Christmas movie they watch every year. It’s a tradition.
There are many things that go into making a great Christmas movie. It needs to be festive and have some sort of Christmas theme, like being grateful or giving gifts. Most importantly, there needs to be a scene in the movie that encapsulates the Christmas spirit.
With that being said, the best Christmas movie is Christmas Vacation, released in 1989. The movie shows that family time is the most important takeaway from the holidays. The Grizwalds unexpectedly have all of their family at their house for the Christmas weekend. In the movie, they make the best out of all the chaos that comes with that. They go sledding, they get a tree, and they have a nice family dinner.
The moment that encapsulates the Christmas spirit in the movie is when Clark Griswald plugs in the cord and turns on the Christmas lights. He spent the whole day putting up the lights with his son. The first time he tried to turn them on everyone was outside and they didn’t work. He found what the problem was and turned the fuse back on and went outside. He went outside and turned them on and they worked. This encapsulates the Christmas spirit because when he tried it at first, his whole family was there and they were proud of Clark’s work even though the lights didn’t turn on. When they finally turned on, he was alone, but he still felt the satisfaction of his hard work coming to life. His neighbors, whom he didn’t like, also got blinded by the lights so that made him happy too.
All in all, there are many great Christmas movies, but Christmas Vacation is the best one.