It’s the time of year where families gather, get drunk and consume Love Actually. But what is it about the season that makes us accept such dross?
Every year, my in-laws have a
Christmas tradition: they all sit down and watch Love Actually together. I will usually be in the kitchen doing something less painful, like removing my own fingernails. I am not sure they really love it that much either, actually. It’s just a thing they do that feels a lot like Christmas. They are by no means the only ones: Christmas is the only time of year that we will actively rewatch movies. Even terrible movies.
This is great news for the film industry. The same old festive films are dusted off and put out every year: It’s a Wonderful Life, Meet Me in St Louis, White Christmas, any number of Christmas Carols (I’ll take the Muppet version), Home Alone, Elf; you know the drill. It takes a lot to get into this hallowed canon but if you do, you can coin it in year after year. It’s the movie equivalent of having written Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, or All I Want for Christmas Is You (which had apparently made Mariah Carey more than $60m by 2017; no wonder she doesn’t want anything else for Christmas).