The Best Christmas Scenes in Non-Christmas Movies
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! When it comes to film and television, there are an overwhelming number of fun and festive topics to discuss here at The Film Rewind. While I look forward to highlighting some of my favorite holiday movies and specials of the season, I want to slightly shift focus from traditional Christmas standards to the films that have great, festive holiday scenes, but don’t focus on the holidays. These are the films that probably aren’t in your holiday rotation, but nonetheless capture something special about this time of the year, for me, if only for a few minutes. These are my favorite Christmas-y scenes in non-Christmas movies.
Lady and the Tramp (1955, dir. Wilfred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi)
It’s easy to forget that this Disney animated masterpiece actually begins and ends with Christmas scenes. In the opening scene of the film, Jim Dear presents a delighted Darling with the utterly adorable cocker spaniel puppy, Lady. The scene is animated with an abundance of joy and festivity, beginning the film at the peak of the happiness scale, the perfect way to set up the gradual and heartbreaking ignoring of Lady by the couple as the film progresses. In the closing scene of the film, after Lady has successfully navigated the tumultuous arrival of a new favorite to the family, fallen in love with a scoundrel mutt, and regained her owners’ appreciation, Lady and Tramp bring their own Christmas gifts to the family, a litter of puppies. As far as happy endings go, you can’t get much jollier than a bunch of puppies at Christmas.
Bright Eyes (1934, dir. David Buter)
This beloved Shirley Temple film begins at Christmastime, with scenes of young Shirley Blake (Temple) preparing for Santa’s arrival on Christmas Eve, complete with her boundless joy in response to her gifts on Christmas day. The film provides a foil to Shirley, the pinnacle of a happy child at Christmas, with bratty, ungrateful Joy (Jane Withers), the mean-spirited child that only her own parents could love. Though the day takes a devastating turn for Shirley that will surely scar her for Christmases to come, the film does a good job of setting up a wonderful Christmas for a child. One of Temple’s most famous songs, “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” comes from a scene in Bright Eyes in which Shirley’s pilot friends throw Shirley her own Christmas party on an airplane. While the film ultimately turns this Christmas from the best to the worst day of this little girl’s life, if the film were to end after that iconic song, it would have been a pretty perfect Christmas.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001, dir. Chris Columbus)
Christmastime at Hogwarts castle is set up beautifully in the first installation of the Harry Potter film series. The festive scenes in the film abound with yuletide magic, as the score wistfully accompanies Hagrid’s (Robbie Coltrane) trek through the snow as he tows the massive Christmas tree for the Great Hall behind him. On Christmas morning Ron (Rupert Grint) excitedly wakes Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), who is at first incredulous and then delighted that he has received presents, as the audience realizes that this is Harry’s first true Christmas (at least, that he can recall). This scene of these two best friends sharing Christmas morning together never ceases to put me in the Christmas spirit, despite the fact that the film is almost always a Halloween watch.
Mean Girls (2004, dir. Mark Waters)
There are a couple of memorable Christmas moments in this hilarious high school comedy. The first is the candy cane prank that Cady (Lindsay Lohan) plays on the snobbish Plastics, during which Damien (Daniel Franzese) delivers an oft-quoted line as he passes out the candy canes in a Santa costume: “Four for you, Glen Coco. You go, Glen Coco!” However, the most memorable holiday moment in the film comes at the school’s talent show, where Cady and the Plastics perform “Jingle Bell Rock” in skimpy Santa outfits with risqué yet elementary dance steps. When a technical difficulty occurs with the music, the group is forced to sing the song, and eventually the delighted audience joins them. It may not be the film that captures the Christmas spirit best, but the image of the four adolescents onstage in the scantily-clad Santa costumes is certainly iconic.
Anne of Green Gables (1985, dir. Kevin Sullivan)
In this wonderful adaptation of the Lucy Maud Montgomery novel, an imaginative, eccentric orphan, Anne (Megan Follows) is adopted by aging siblings, the gentle and timid Matthew (Richard Farnsworth) and the sensible, no nonsense Marilla Cuthbert (Colleen Dewhurst). Among Anne’s myriad of unconventional desires is to have a dress with puffed sleeves. At Christmastime, Matthew, unbeknownst to Marilla, goes to the general store to purchase such a dress for Anne. The scene in which he struggles to muster the courage to purchase the dress from the shopkeeper (Mag Ruffman) is too funny and adorable to describe accurately, and the scene in which Anne, donning the dress of her dreams, thanks and embraces Matthew as he is working in the barn, shatters the wholesome meter every time. As any introvert could appreciate, Matthew’s gift involved a great deal of sacrifice. Anne is intently aware of that fact, and loves him all the more for it. I can’t think of a better Christmas gift scene than this.
Beaches (1989, dir. Garry Marshall)
Because, when you think Christmas, don’t you think Beaches? Okay, I’m probably the only one who does. This is the most fleeting Christmas scene on my list, but whenever I think of Christmastime in movies, I always think of this moment first. In this scene, long-time pen pals and friends C.C. (Bette Midler) and Hillary (Barbara Hershey) are rooming together in a small, chilly apartment in New York City. It is Christmas Eve, and Hillary and C.C. are lying in their respective beds, singing Christmas carols to each other in harmony. A tired C.C. claims to be finished singing and ready to sleep, but Hillary comes in with yet another carol. C.C. doesn’t leave her friend hanging, and soon joins in with the harmony. It is a sweet and charming moment between friends, and when I watch the scene I can’t help but think of how this exact scenario has happened so many times between me and my own life-long friend, who happens to also be my mother. This small, quiet scene reminds me of everything I love about this most wonderful time of year.
What are your favorite holiday scenes from non-holiday movies? Let me know in the comments below, and get ready to deck those halls with even more holiday fun!
Copyright ©2019 Bailey Lizotte
