In Search of Christmas Classics: Where Have All Those Family Movies Gone?
(ANALYSIS) “Where have all the Christmas movies gone?”
That’s a question more and more people are asking these days. For a while, it seemed like every year there was a new Christmas movie coming out that would immediately become an annual holiday staple for families everywhere.
In my lifetime alone, we’ve seen hits such as “Home Alone,” “Muppet Christmas Carol,” “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Jingle All The Way,” “The Santa Clause,” “Elf” and “Love Actually” all emerge as Christmas classics in the same breath as “It’s A Wonderful Life, “Miracle on 34th Street” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
READ: Why ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Remains Beloved By Both Christians And Nonbelievers
All of that stopped about 20 years ago. The New York Times recently ran a piece noting this year was the 20th anniversary of both “Elf” and “Love Actually” — two movies that premiered on the same day — and the last movies released that most would agree to label a Christmas classic.
There are still Christmas movies being made, but none have managed to become an accepted yearly staple among a wide cross-section of Americans. Hallmark runs round-the-clock Christmas movies every season, but those appeal to a very niche audience of moms who want something on while they do things around the house.
“Last Christmas,” starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, charmed and baffled viewers with its bonkers yet sweetly tragic plot. “Klaus,” a beautifully animated Netflix film re-imagined the origin of Santa with an “Emperor’s New Groove” meets “A Christmas Carol” redemption story. It was even nominated for an Oscar but has largely been lost in the shuffle of your Netflix library.
There are lots of theories as to why the Christmas classic died. Perhaps, as some have argued, it simply takes time to become a Christmas classic with culture-wide acceptance. And yet, that wasn’t true of the Christmas movies that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s. Perhaps streaming is to blame, where movies like “Klaus” would be classics today if they had come out in theaters rather than on a streaming service where there are so many other choices.
The most likely answer is also the saddest: Classic Christmas movies were geared toward families. The family is not as central to American life as it once was.
Christmas has been around for 2,000 years, but has evolved quite a bit during that time. Prior to Christianity, most places celebrated a holiday of feasting during the winter months to commemorate the harvest ahead of a cold winter. When Christianity took root, the Romans established that time as Christmas. But it was a holiday that essentially was celebrated two different ways by the same people — where most people went to church in the morning and partied hard in the evening, to such a degree that many Christians at different times accused the spirit of Christmas of being that of pagan debauchery and sought to ban it.
This changed in the 19th century, when Washington Irving and Charles Dickens both wrote books that re-imagined the Christmas that people celebrated outside of church as one of families getting together. This created a perceived unity between the values of the Christmas holiday celebrated within the church and the one outside of it.
As America and its culture-makers became more secular in the 20th century, songs like “White Christmas” and “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” started popularizing a version of Christmas that was reflective of those Christmas values without referencing the religious beliefs they were derived from. It led to a common “spirit of Christmas” that people were engaging in regardless of their religious affiliation, which is why 85% of Americans claim to celebrate Christmas while only 63% identify as Christian.
This secularized Christmas that is oriented toward families is the context in which the modern “Christmas movie” has existed. Christmas was a holiday that was celebrated primarily by families, and therefore the movies they would watch to celebrate would be ones that appealed to parents with children alike. Therefore, movies like “White Christmas,” “It’s A Wonderful Life” and others that came later were all geared toward that purpose.
But if the Christmas movie was built around families — and families have become less central to American life — then this particular genre would fall apart. Young people are putting off having families until later in life, which means there is a smaller audience of people for such films. At the same time Christmas movies fell out of fashion, PG-13 blockbusters — movies geared toward 20 to 30 year olds – became a Hollywood staple, such as “Lord of The Rings” and “Avatar.”
Families today, even when they are together at Christmastime, are spending less of their time together. Increasingly, people are slaves to their devices and social media, watching their own form of entertainment, like YouTube.
This is where we begin to see a growth in specialized Christmas entertainment. Sappy Hallmark Christmas movies were for the moms and young women, whereas testosterone-juiced action films like “Die Hard” were reinterpreted as Christmas movies, and new ones like “Violent Night” and “Silent Night” (and the upcoming “Red One”) were made for young men. Traditional movies like “Klaus” still get made, but they simply draw in fewer viewers.
With these demographic changes not looking like they’ll reverse anytime soon, does that mean that the traditional Christmas movie is gone for good?
Maybe not.
There is a demographic that could bring it back: The faith-based movie audience. This demographic is largely made up of committed religious people. These Christians are one of the most family-oriented demographics. So if there’s a demographic that would likely be able to support a traditional Christmas movie, it would be this one.
Dallas Jenkins — creator and showrunner behind the smash-hit TV series about the life of Jesus, “The Chosen” — announced he’s directing a new film “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” in 2024. Based on the 1971 children’s novel of the same name, it tells the story of six misfit children who volunteer to star in their town's Sunday school Christmas pageant and end up teaching the town the true meaning of the season.
The movie has a real chance of being a hit. Both Jenkins and Kingdom Storybook Company, the company he’s making it with, have developed huge brand loyalty with Christian families through “The Chosen.” Moreover, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” is just Christian enough for Christian audiences – but has enough broad appeal to appeal to secular audiences as well.
If this movie does well, we might also see a new cultural shift in the presentation of Christmas that is once more overtly religious. The 20th century saw the secularization of expressions of Christmas both to keep Christmas’ broad appeal in a secularized culture and because the culture-makers themselves were increasingly less religious.
But if secular culture increasingly abandons the family-oriented expression of the holiday, then Christian audiences may start to drive how it’s expressed. And in an increasingly splintered holiday marketplace, this religious family demographic might just become the dominant one again.
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Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.