In this season of peace and rejoice, I thought I would highlight some perennial Christmas classics that band us together in the holiday spirit as well as the other clunkers that cause us to depressingly retreat to our corners.

The Classics:

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – The perennial classic that people have embraced more and more with age. How can it now grow more timeless when it is about a man who realizes that the world would have been a much worse place without him? Realizing that gives us all something to aspire to in our lives.

A Christmas Story (1983) – There is no funnier or more accurate film that captures the child we were at one point when we had an unwavering fixation on receiving a particular gift and nothing else. It is even better because the gift he wants – a BB rifle – has every adult around him fearing it will destroy their peace if he shoots his eye out. And the movie stands above similar counterparts because it actually brings out the importance of family amidst the whirlwind of materialism.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – His friends may call him a "blockhead" and say he can’t decorate a Christmas tree right but actually Charlie Brown is one of the smartest in the Peanuts bunch for going through the pain of asking what Christmas is really all about. Perhaps my personal favorite holiday film (despite it being a TV special rather than a feature), if only for the climactic moment where Linus drops his security blanket and steps forward to tell whose birthday Christmas really is.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) – In a way, this movie plays as an inside-out contrast to It’s a Wonderful Life because it is about an old man who is thought to be insane because he is willing to be the real Santa Claus and bring unusual and uncommon generosity to children. It also exposes the materialistic culture for all its bah-humbug worth while reminding us that we all need our childhood fantasies from time to time to carry through the stresses of life.

An Affair to Remember (1957) – This movie covers the romance field of Christmas and how frustrating it is not to spend it with the one you’re destined to be with. It is also the most emotional time (or entertaining fun) you will have in seeing what difficult contortions fate puts through these two lovers that we know should be together from the beginning.