It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…or is it?

One of the best things about the run up to Christmas is all the Christmas movies that rear their heads at this time of year. You know the sort, extremely snowy, full of ‘good will to all men’, and Bing Crosby sat round a piano.

But after watching all my favourites already: Elf, Miracle on 34th Street, Die Hard 2 and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation I’ve realised something. I don’t live in New York, I have had three years where it actually snowed on Christmas day and I have never needed to blow up a hijacked plane (ala Bruce Willis) to feel all festive inside. So why do we watch these films, year in year out, which shows a Christmas that doesn’t really relate to the Christmas day that we experience.

Christmas is not James Stewart running down a snowy street shouting Merry Christmas! No, it’s all about last minute Internet shopping and watching the Morecombe and Wise Christmas special, yet again, because it’s far better than any of this year's ‘Christmas Specials’. Especially with this year’s rather mild winter a snowy Christmas is just not going to happen. So this year I am dreaming of a film that shows a white-free Christmas, just like the ones we actually know…and maybe a hangover free Boxing Day.