There’s something nostalgic about the holidays, but as we grow older, the question of “why doesn’t Christmas feel like Christmas anymore?” pops up time and time again, and we find ourselves searching for this nostalgia through holiday watches.

For some, this may be through films about children. Year after year, audiences return to Home Alone’s (1990) eight-year-old Kevin, who believes his family has disappeared and elaborately concocts a way to protect his home from robbers; A Christmas Story’s (1983) nine-year-old Ralphie, who desperately wants a BB gun; or the precociously independent Peanuts in A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965).

Through these stories, we find comfort both in the memories of holidays passed, and in the sense of wonder created through the eyes by which we watch them unfold. For these characters, Christmas is the priority — a luxury very few can afford as they reach adulthood. Kevin doesn’t have a deadline in mid-January, Ralphie doesn’t have to work on Boxing Day, and Charlie Brown’s parents certainly aren’t asking him what his plans are after graduation.

But even when the films are centred on adults, childlike wonder remains a central theme.

Take Elf (2003), for example. The film tells the story of Buddy, who, after having spent his whole life among elves in the North Pole, decides to go to New York in search of his biological father, a cold-hearted book publisher named Walter Hobbs.

Throughout the film, Buddy encourages Walter and everyone else around him to embrace the spirit of the holiday season; the third act then revolves around our protagonist, his family, and his new girlfriend, trying to help Santa Claus fly his sleigh.

It is only once Walter has quit his job and New York City has been made to believe again (via Buddy’s disillusioned girlfriend getting over her fear of public singing to lead Central Park in carolling) that Christmas can be saved.

The message is clear: growing up hardens you, and the holidays are the opportunity to allow childishness back into your life.

The same can be said for Nativity!, another 2000s Christmas classic. The 2009 film follows Christmas-hating Mr. Maddens as he is tasked with directing the nativity play in a Coventry primary school with the help of Mr. Poppy, an immature and irresponsible teacher’s aide.

This time, it is only through Mr. Poppy’s repeated bumbling mistakes and safeguarding violations that the school succeeds in putting on the nativity play they dreamed of and Mr. Maddens finally falls in love with Christmas again (through being reunited with the woman who broke his heart many Christmases ago in order to pursue her dream job).

This theme presents itself more clearly in the endless stream of low-budget holiday romances put out by Netflix and Hallmark each year, when the formula of ‘businesswoman leaves her rich fiancé and fancy job in a big city to return to the simplicity of her hometown’ is used as a tool to stress the importance of the Christmas spirit.

Through these films, corporate careers are depicted as morally opposed to the concept of Christmastime, instead favouring small-town jobs such as innkeeper-slash-ice-sculptor (as seen in Christmas Inheritance (2017)), plant store owner (Single All the Way (2021)) or candle maker (Love Hard (2021)).

Though these jobs may be due to a number of production decisions, the easiest reason is the most obvious: it’s more fun that way. As many adults are forced to be chained to their desks for much of the year, it is so much more fun to escape to a small-town bakery than it is to an insurance firm.

And if the spirit of Christmas exists in spending time with loved ones and freeing yourself, even for a moment, from the non-stop routines of adulthood, no wonder we turn towards films that show us what the holidays could be, instead of what they really are.

Image credit: Micah Petyt