Ahhhh! A Winter Holiday Watch List, by Tyee Readers

Many of us remember this time last year, when people lined up around the block to get tested for COVID-19 while the contact tracing and testing system reached its capacity until cold weather forced some testing sites to close.

As 2021 ran out the clock, it had to get better than this, we reasoned.

But oh, 2022 has been a beast.

We’re approaching 2023 with cautious optimism. Meanwhile, we all have some serious resting to do. And this is an assignment that many of you are already taking very seriously.

When we asked Tyee readers what they’re comfort-watching this holiday season, you turned up with enthusiastic lists of movies and television shows promising tenderness, comfort and escape. It’s yet another reminder that there’s warmth among this community of readers, and a desire to delight in simple joys together.

“Of all the films I've seen during the past few years, Kedi is the purest pleasure,” wrote Tyee reader Ralph Haygood. The documentary follows the lives of street cats in Istanbul. “Not only are the cats and the people who care for them quite engaging, but it's magnificently filmed.”

A reader who identified himself as “Ken in Ottawa” wrote in to share his favourite movies for the winter holidays, all classic romantic comedies. Love Actually. Notting Hill. Shakespeare in Love. Dave, another reader, shared this sentiment: “All those sappy W channel romances,” Dave wrote. “Harmless, no violence and always that kiss in the last three minutes. Just sit back and watch it unfold as we know the ending.”

We’re here for it. Throw on The Tyee’s holiday playlist while you relax with our readers’ comfy classics. The Tyee's office and systems co-ordinator Kimberly Sayson assembled it with our staff favourites in mind.

Cher some love

It isn't a traditional holiday choice, but every year we watch Moonstruck when the snow arrives. The whole beautiful mess takes place as the weather turns in New York, and Cher falls into her fiance’s brother’s bed in part because she has dressed for the opera in heels and is “So cold.” Completely understandable.

Olympia Dukakis is the heart of this classic, and her defense of her family is always enough to get me through another year.

— Lori Bamber

Tradition across 2,000 miles

Beginning when he was two years old, my son and I had a tradition every Christmas Eve. We would watch the following movies (all on VHS): the classic animated productions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The evening's entertainment would culminate with the beautifully animated and gloriously scored The Snowman, based on the book by Raymond Briggs.

We continued this tradition for more than a decade and, even though my son is now 30 years old and lives 2,000 miles away from me in Chicago, we both still watch these movies at Christmas time. Other perennial favorites are the wonderful The Muppet Christmas Carol, Father Christmas (another animated short based on a Raymond Brigg's book) and the 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street (it’s never Christmas without it).

I am one of five children. In fact, I am the middle child between two sets of twins; for more than 30 years my mother cooked amazing holiday dinners and Christmas was no exception. She is also a great baker and every year I spent many hours helping her prepare a delicious assortment of cookies and her much acclaimed stollen.

While chopping, sifting and mixing ingredients we loved to watch many old black and white movies including It's a Wonderful Life, Meet Me in St. Louis, A Christmas Carol and my favourite, The Bishop's Wife.

Although the days of large family dinners have passed, my holiday memories are inextricably entwined with my enjoyment of these wonderful films.

— Colbey Peters

Let’s spend Christmas in New York

While I'm normally a Christmas traditionalist (The Muppet Christmas Carol every year or Christmas didn't happen), my most recent comfort watch is, well, recent!

Let me take you back to Christmas 2020 for a moment. The second wave of the pandemic was cresting, and I'd known since August that I would be spending the holidays on the West Coast, far from my family out east (they weren't even running flights to my hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick).

It was my first Vancouver Christmas, despite having lived here for, at that point, 11 years. In a fit of trapped-indoors-for-a-year pique, I'd gone to Best Buy in November and purchased an inordinately large television, and I was passing the pandemic by making my apartment as festive as possible. It was the year I rented a live tree and my decorations went from taking up one box to five.

So, back to comfort watching. Now cozy in front of my giant box of light, the world of Christmas entertainment was my oyster. In the way of Netflix, I stumbled onto the show Dash & Lily one night while browsing. The show is based on the novel Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, and the premise is the stuff classic young-adult fiction is made of: wholesome nerd Lily is looking for love for Christmas, and leaves a notebook full of clues at the Strand, a New York City bookstore. The notebook is found by grumpy Christmas-hater Dash, who is on his own for the holidays and drawn in by the call of the mystery girl with her intriguing dares. Over eight episodes, they work their way closer to each other, identities a secret, all the time barrelling through the classic questions of Christmas: can expectations measure up to reality? And is all the bother really worth it in the end?

I watched the series, breathlessly, in a day or two. Then I went over to the house of my best friend — and bubble-mate — and made him watch it. There were moments we cackled out loud: in one scene, Lily's brother Langston exclaims “Oh my god!" at a party dress in a way that is more facial expression than utterance, and we rewatched the clip three times (this is now tradition), laughing our heads off each time. In another, Dash and Lily are having a voiceover exchange through the notebook while Dash attempts to make mochi. When Lily challenges him to give up, he shouts a pirate-y “Never!” out loud, surprising the gathered group of mochi grandmas who are instructing him.

The series has all of the seasonal trappings and some delightful additions: this is New York at Christmas, drag queens at an underground Jewish punk show, a pitch-perfect celebrity cameo, and glamorous kids having parties where parents don't exist. Everyone in the city is somehow Lily's cousin, and the older folks in Lily's life — shoutout especially to her deeply glamorous great aunt — face just as many hurdles as the younger protagonists. It's a sweet confection that manages to have some substance in amongst its cheer.

Dash & Lily has become part of my Christmas traditions. This year, my bestie and I once again sat down together to watch Langston react to a fabulous dress three times, while agreeing that Dash's absentee dad is a piece of — um — tinsel. We're two episodes from the end, and we'll finish on Saturday, maybe after a trip to the Christmas Market.

When Netflix cancelled Dash & Lily after one season, the internet was sad, but I think they'd already told a complete story. Like Lily and her funky homemade wardrobe, the show is perfect just the way it is.

— Emily Davidson

Going against the grain for 'One Magic Christmas'

It was the mid-‘80s and our daughter was five years old. We rented not only a “videotape” but the machine to watch it on because we did not yet have a player of our own. Despite its G rating, One Magic Christmas was not loved by many parents because they felt there were dark overtones, and perhaps the angel played by an amazing Harry Dean Stanton seemed a bit sinister.

The film has all the elements of a great seasonal story: the working-class family experiencing some hardship, a struggling small town, a non-believing grinchy mom played perfectly by Mary Steenburgen and some well-done magical realism. The film is serious and does not fall into the usual easy, campy cliches. Also it features the best Santa ever, played by Jan Rubeš. And watch for the small role of a neighbour's child played by a tiny Sarah Polley (now an acclaimed filmmaker).

One Magic Christmas was a unique seasonal movie and still holds up to this day. We watch it almost every year — now rented from a streaming service.

Our daughter is now in her 40s, the same age the child actors in the film would be now. She lives at the opposite end of the country. Yet as we spoke on the phone the other day, this movie came up as we discussed what is on our movie watch-list for December. I highly recommend it.

— Corinne Roth