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What's your guilty pleasure, to make it through the festive period? Here are some of my highlights.

Where Eagles Dare.
Escape to Victory.
Home Alone.
Die Hard.
Die Hard 2.
Not a huge fan of James Stewart, but his cannon is pretty sweet during the winter months.
Something by Dickens.
Groundhog Day.
Saving Private Ryan.
For A Few Dollars More.
Elf.
Michael Clayton.
Synecdoche, New York.

Uh oh, it's taking a dark turn already.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
The Way of the Gun.
Anything Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez appears in.
Kingpin.
Any Coen Brothers film.
Ghostbusters.

Mary Poppins Returns

Elf, Die Hard, Home Alone, Die Hard and of course Polar Express.

Wallace and Gromits Grand Day Out
Crazy for Christmas
The Amazing Mr. Blunden.

The Mem Sahib would lock herself away from October to Christmas Day, and watch the entire Christmas output on every afternoon from Channel 5, and then also watch the other cable Christmas movie channel that airs those cheesy American made-for-TV movie.
These movies disappear after Christmas Eve for another 9 months. Channel 5 show about 3 of them back to back often.
Where the local towns are 98% white , all wear jumpers, drive reliable new cars and you never see a gun.
Usually a cake-baking competition going on.

I can tolerate more or less anything apart from Sliding Doors, Mama Mia, or It’s A Wonderful Life.

On Christmas afternoon after Queen Lizzie's speech , it should be The Great Escape or Goldfinger on alternate years.
Then followed by the Triple Crown Event of Scrabble, Monopoly and Cluedo.
In the evening should be a re-run of a Morecambe and Wise classic, usually the one with Angela Rippon, or Andre Previn , or was that the same show?

I always watch "Scrooge", the B&W Alastair Sim version, on or around the 19th, to get me in the mood.

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Scrooged

Bonafide classics

With a nod to JimmyDee , the Alistair Sim version of a Christmas Carol is the best and a much watch over the Festive season in Chez Salem .

Along with Die Hard and Die Hard 2 .............usually when Mrs Salem hits the hay .

She insists watching the Harry Potter films in order every fucking year . Swings and roundabouts i suppose

Himmelfall.

Bit off topic... there was a period when for a few years we ending up watching films which were not very festive on Chrismas day.

Nothing like sitting in front of the tv on Christmas day with your brother,parents and a couple of aunts and uncles watching;

The Exorcist
Clockwork Orange
Leaving Las Vagas
Requiem for a dream

Sliding Doors
Mamma Mia!
It’s A Wonderful Life

Fuck sake, I totally forgot about Bond. I once spent the entire festive period holed-up at the University of Kansas for a week, smoking hella weed and watching Bond movies. Haha. I did get some offers from some of the girls to spend Xmas with them. I think they felt a bit sorry for me. All the students went home of course, but I couldn't afford the flight back to England so I was stuck. Luckly my Mexican room-mate wasn't around. Old 'Lalo' Delgardo. He was alright. I'll tell you about him sometime. He once took so many magic mushrooms he tried to jump-out of our top floor window. Luckly for him, the window had a safety-thing which meant you couldn't open it more than about an inch and a half. He still tried though. Here's Mccollum halls of residence at KU so you can get some idea. We were on the top floor. We caused such a ruckas that first semester, KU never let anymore students to live on the top floor again. Perhaps due to old 'Lalo' trying to be a mushroom-infused Superman wannabe.



Live and Let Die
The Man with the Golden Gun
Moonraker
On repeat.

Venturing out only to get a Jimmy John's ham and cheese sub. Plus some crisps. Although yank crisps aren't much good. Still, it's nice they make the effort in the New World to imitate our lovely crisps.

I like Roger Moore's Bond the best. "I've lost my charm...", "I wouldn't say that my dear". Fucking superb festive movie fare is Mr. Bond. But Roger was the best. A vicious passive-aggressive cunt. When he beat-up women on-screen it nearly scuppered his pro-female charity roles. But with typical suave, vaguely sleazy aplomb, and a good dose of blue terry-cloth suits, he got away with it. I love his style. I've no time for Connery, he is a genuine piece of work. Dalton is underrated. That other bloke, the Irish one, was dreadful.

Scrooge with Albert Finney the musical

Lewis Collins....the best Bond we never had.
I loved Planes,Trains but it was centred around Thanksgiving, not Christmas.
I missed the old Laurel and Hardy shorts they aired on early mornings. Maybe the Beeb cutting costs on the replay roylaties.
BBC Four showed the Christmas episode of Likely Lads which must have pissed off Bolam.