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Christmas Countdown 2026

Dispatches, commentary, and media logs from the open web.

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  • christmas countdown #46: dashing in december (2020) and a home that cannot stay frozen

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    christmas countdown #46: dashing in december (2020) and a home that cannot stay frozen

    a holiday trip to sell the family ranch becomes a romance about what is worth keeping, and who gets to decide. Read more

    going home for christmas can feel like being asked to endorse a version of your life that you have spent years revising. the furniture recognises you. the people may be working from an older file.

    dashing in december (2020) sends new york financier wyatt back to the family ranch, hoping to persuade his mother to sell it. an attraction to ranch hand heath complicates a visit that was supposed to have a fairly clear business objective.

    the setup is familiar holiday-romance territory, which is part of its usefulness. two men get to inhabit the soft lighting, rural scenery and conspicuously inconvenient feelings that the genre has been providing for other couples for years. their relationship does not need to apologise for wanting that space.

    the more interesting tension sits inside the property question. keeping a place can preserve a family’s history; it can also demand that somebody else keep doing the work. selling can be practical and still feel like an erasure. the romance gives that argument faces, even when the machinery is visibly steering toward reassurance.

    Dashing in December promotional artwork shows Juan Pablo Di Pace, Peter Porte and Andie MacDowell against snowy mountains and horses.

    why christmas matters

    christmas makes the ranch both a working place and a container for memory. wyatt cannot discuss its future as though he has walked into an empty asset. the holiday supplies the pressure to look again, and the danger of confusing familiarity with an obligation to stay.

    the right evening

    a gentle queer-romance evening when familiar genre comforts sound more helpful than surprising. number 46 earns its place by making room for desire inside the homecoming story, while allowing that home itself may need a little renegotiation.

    From my media collectionDashing in December (2020)Director: Jake Helgren • Genre: Drama, TV Movie • Year: 2020Save this countdown pick or add your take on Trove.View on Trove

    featured image: Mitch Meyer / Paramount Network source

    body image: Paramount Network source

  • christmas countdown #47: violent night (2022) and santa reaching his limit

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    christmas countdown #47: violent night (2022) and santa reaching his limit

    a hostage crisis meets a very tired santa, with enough blood to rule out a cosy family screening. Read more

    there are christmas films about restoring faith in humanity, and then there is the practical problem of humanity making that task unpleasant. violent night gives santa a shift that would justify calling in sick next year.

    in tommy wirkola’s 2022 action comedy, mercenaries take a wealthy family hostage and discover that santa claus is an unexpected obstacle. david harbour wears the suit. the film supplies an extremely bloody answer to what happens when a seasonal icon has to handle an action-movie emergency.

    the joke is obvious enough to fit on the poster, so the interesting question is how long it can keep working. harbour helps by making santa seem worn down rather than merely amused by the premise. delivering annual proof of magic to a world this unpleasant would apparently become a job like any other.

    the contrast between extravagant surroundings and miserable behaviour also does useful work. a magnificent christmas setting cannot make its occupants generous. money can buy the decorations and still leave a room with remarkably little worth celebrating. the violence is the noisy attraction, but that sourness gives it somewhere to land.

    Director Tommy Wirkola talks with David Harbour, dressed as Santa Claus, beside a decorated fireplace on the set of Violent Night.

    why christmas matters

    the film needs santa to mean something before it can enjoy putting him in this situation. generosity, belief and the promise of protection are all present, even while the action makes an enormous mess of the wrapping. the seasonal sentiment survives in a deliberately battered form.

    the right evening

    an adults-only action night with people who actively want gore and foul language. this is not a mischievous substitute for a children’s santa film. number 47 goes to a blunt idea delivered with enough weary conviction to outlast the initial joke.

    From my media collectionViolent Night (2022)Director: Tommy Wirkola • Genre: Action, Comedy, Fantasy • Year: 2022Save this countdown pick or add your take on Trove.View on Trove

    featured image: Violent Night (2022) promotional artwork. Source: Universal Pictures. © 2022 Universal Pictures. source

    body image: On the set of Violent Night (2022). Photo: Allen Fraser / Universal Pictures, via SYFY. source

  • christmas countdown #48: let it snow (2019) and the evening before everything changes

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    christmas countdown #48: let it snow (2019) and the evening before everything changes

    a christmas eve snowstorm gives a group of teenagers time to say what the ordinary week keeps swallowing. Read more

    at the end of school, a familiar town can start to feel like something you are already leaving. every ordinary place becomes a candidate for the last time you do a thing. that is a slightly unreasonable amount of pressure to put on a waffle restaurant.

    The ensemble cast of Let It Snow lies in a circle in the snow, with their heads toward the centre.

    in let it snow (2019), a christmas eve storm tangles the friendships and romances of a group of high school seniors. there is a stranded pop star, an ambitious party and enough intersecting plans to make staying home look administratively sensible.

    the ensemble format means some connections have more room than others. it also catches the peculiar scale of teenage uncertainty, when a conversation that an adult might forget before dinner can rearrange the whole map. attraction and embarrassment keep interrupting everybody’s idea of the evening.

    this is a modest pleasure rather than a grand seasonal revelation. its place in the countdown comes from letting young people occupy the holiday on their own terms. christmas does not belong exclusively to parents trying to rescue it, or adults returning home to reconsider a career. sometimes the event is simply getting through the room to the person you wanted to see.

    why christmas matters

    the snow interrupts the usual exits, while christmas eve adds the suggestion that something ought to happen before morning. the town briefly becomes a shared waiting room. that is a useful setting for people who have not yet agreed on what comes next.

    the right evening

    an easy ensemble-romance evening when you want a little longing without an emotional demolition. let the coincidences accumulate. number 48 is for the small possibility that an inconvenient night might give somebody a necessary opening.

    From my media collectionLet It Snow (2019)Director: Luke Snellin • Genre: Romance, Comedy • Year: 2019Save this countdown pick or add your take on Trove.View on Trove

    image credits: cast image from Netflix Tudum; featured artwork from Netflix. Let It Snow © Netflix.

  • christmas countdown #49: a christmas carol (2009) and a future nobody wants to visit

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    christmas countdown #49: a christmas carol (2009) and a future nobody wants to visit

    the ghosts bring an overdue account of what scrooge has done with his time, and the bill is difficult to ignore. Read more

    a christmas ghost story has an unfair advantage. everybody already understands what it means to be haunted by an earlier version of the holiday. the room remembers people who no longer sit in it. even the decorations can keep an inconvenient record.

    Ebenezer Scrooge in a black top hat and coat on a snowy Victorian street in Disney’s A Christmas Carol.

    robert zemeckis’s 2009 adaptation puts jim carrey at the centre of dickens’s familiar visitation. scrooge is taken through the past, present and possible future, with the animation giving the journey a restless, sometimes alarming physical scale.

    the spectacle can be a lot. there are moments when the machinery threatens to turn a moral reckoning into an attraction that wants to show you how fast it can move. still, this version makes room for the story’s unpleasantness. scrooge needs more than a cosy reminder to be generous.

    what keeps the premise troubling is the gap between intention and consequence. someone can think of himself as merely practical while other people experience him as a closed door. the ghosts make those separate accounts occupy the same room. nobody gets to hide behind being busy.

    why christmas matters

    the holiday puts private comfort beside public need. a warm house becomes harder to admire when the story keeps asking who has been left outside it. christmas also gives change a deadline, which is useful when a man has spent years postponing decency.

    the right evening

    a darker animation night for viewers comfortable with frightening ghosts, rather than a soothing background film for the youngest children. number 49 goes to a version whose unease survives its excess. the future is still unwritten, but it is becoming less patient.

    From my media collectionA Christmas Carol (2009)Director: Robert Zemeckis • Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy, Drama • Year: 2009Save this countdown pick or add your take on Trove.View on Trove

    image credits: body image from Disney Movies; featured artwork from Disney+. Disney’s A Christmas Carol © Disney.

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    christmas countdown #50: jingle all the way (1996) and the panic in the toy aisle

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    christmas countdown #50: jingle all the way (1996) and the panic in the toy aisle

    a missing toy, an absent dad, and the peculiar belief that christmas can be repaired before the shops close. Read more

    the frightening thing about jingle all the way is how little explaining its central disaster requires. a father has promised a toy. he has not bought the toy. somehow, the future of the entire family now appears to depend on stock availability.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Santa suit raises his hands beside the Jingle All the Way title on a green background.

    the 1996 film sends arnold schwarzenegger through a christmas eve shopping scramble that keeps getting louder and less defensible. sinbad supplies a rival shopper, and the adults turn a children’s present into an excuse to behave like people who should never be allowed near children’s presents.

    it is a broad, exhausting comedy. that is part of the case for putting it here, rather than pretending the countdown needs to open with a masterpiece. its ridiculous scale catches something familiar about the season: a small failure acquires an audience, then a deadline, then the weight of every earlier failure.

    the uncomfortable detail is the attempted shortcut. showing up consistently would take months. buying the correct object could, in theory, be finished this afternoon. the movie lets that calculation become physical chaos, with a very large man discovering that being very large does not improve inventory.

    why christmas matters

    christmas turns the toy into a test of whether somebody has been listening. the commercial machinery supplies the test, the scarcity and the closing time. beneath the slapstick is the worry that love has become something you can fail to locate on a shelf.

    the right evening

    a noisy, low-stakes watch after shopping, preferably when nobody still needs you to buy anything. it earns number 50 for making festive panic recognisable, even when the shouting threatens to flatten the joke.

    From my media collectionJingle All the Way (1996)Director: Brian Levant • Genre: Family, Adventure, Comedy • Year: 1996Save this countdown pick or add your take on Trove.View on Trove

    image credits: body artwork from 20th Century Studios; featured artwork from Disney+. Jingle All the Way © 20th Century Studios.

    Fediverse Reactions
  • 50 Christmas movies: the countdown starts here

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    50 Christmas movies: the countdown starts here

    50 films, 50 nights, and a deeply unreasonable amount of festive opinion. Our Christmas movie countdown runs November 5–December 24. Read more

    christmas is 51 days away, which seems rude considering halloween was approximately twenty minutes ago. so we’re doing the sensible thing: making an entire film season out of it.

    starting november 5, we’re counting down 50 christmas movies, one a day, until our number one arrives on christmas eve. classics, queer romance, animation, family disasters, and a little festive bloodshed. the holidays contain multitudes.

    this is an editorial ranking, not a scientific measurement of how much christmas a film contains. the season has to matter to the story or the atmosphere, but the people involved do not have to be having a nice time. feature films and feature-length television movies count; standalone television specials get to sit this one out.

    each day brings a spoiler-light case for the film, what makes it belong here, and the kind of evening it suits. no homework, no requirement to agree with the order, and absolutely no promise that everybody will behave at dinner.