Everybody's got favorite Christmas movies and TV shows they watch year after year. But it's also great finding a new fave you never knew existed.
That's why Christmas books are so cool -- and why I wrote one myself, Christmas on Television (Praeger Press). I'd been watching (and recording) holiday episodes for years, for reasons that weren't clear to me until I started thinking on it for the book. If rewatching my favorite episodes, movies and even soaps or commercials was eye-opening, then discovering new shows was even more delicious. Who knew there were Christmas episodes involving Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Flying Nun, Kojak, SWAT, The Tick, Super Duper Sumos, Teletubbies and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion?
Now there's another fun entry in the Christmas entertainment game. The new paperback Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) follows other cinema-centered books, but author Alonso Duralde displays a keen eye, quick wit and sharp tongue while covering swaths of ground that other Wonderful Life/Story/Carol/Vacation rundowns don't touch.
Duralde dishes a James Bond Christmas (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), Shirley Temple's Heidi and Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maud's. He spots Christmas imagery in Brazil (photo above) and Female Trouble (photo at right). He's got a whole chapter on holiday horror.
In fact, that chapter organization makes Duralde's book a breeze to read, dividing Christmas movies into handy subcategories: comedies, tearjerkers, action, movies for kids, movies for adults, bad Christmas movies, classics. He includes TV movies, too.
Order Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas at a discount now, and get it in time for holiday reading (or giving). But don't forget Christmas on Television while you're at it. (Both are also available in Kindle editions.)