Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists. Moviemakers especially have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptations of literary classics and new stories. While it is probably impossible to capture everything on the market I will try to categorize the huge number of Christmas DVDs.

1. Christmas movies

Christmas movies obviously are the most important because their canon contains some of the most influential and beloved ever made. In more recent times, filmmakers have used Christmas stories to highlight, parody, satirize and comment on society. Additionally, watching Christmas DVDs during the holidays, particular in the days leading up to the holiday is a well-established family tradition. Notable examples are the film It’s a Wonderful Life, and the similarly themed versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Scrooge, in which Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts and learns the meaning and importance of Christmas. The hero of the former, George Bailey, is a businessman who sacrificed his dreams to help his community. On Christmas Eve, a guardian angel finds him in despair and prevents him from committing suicide by magically showing him how much he meant to the world around him.

The two examples here also make clear another distinction: Movies that revolve around the Christmas holiday and celebrations and films in which the holiday season just happens incidentally. Nevertheless the themes and morals presented in both categories make those (mostly) classics the right thing to watch during the holiday season.

2. TV specials

Many Christmas stories have also been adapted to TV specials and have been broadcast and repeated many times on TV.

Also many popular TV series have their own Christmas specials. The productions range from sitcoms like Roseanne or Full House to animation series like The Simpsons or South Park or Drama series like The O.C. or ER. Also TV holiday special classics like Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, How The Grinch Stole Christmas or A Charlie Brown Christmas fall under this category.

This article is just a taste of things to come (on this blog and hopefully for you during Christmas season). If you’d like to know morw about all the wonderful Christmas DVDs that are out there check out Wikipedia’s registers of Christmas films and television specials.

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