Growing up Muslim meant that I never celebrated Christmas (still don’t) but my mom loves movies so we grew up watching up a lot of movies, basically whatever she had on.
There was a lot of Bollywood movies but also some Hollywood fare and one of the first memories of “Christmas” as a cultural thing I got was from the movie Home Alone. And for a long time that was basically my only cultural connection with Christmas.
I was on Letterboxd on Christmas Day and saw a post on their blog about movies people watch every year around Christmas and the top one was It’s A Wonderful Life so I decided to watch it, cause why not. I’m glad I did, its a delightful movie. The movie’s core message of people mattering more than money, the importance of community and mutual aid is one that really resonated with me.
So now I have a new favourite Christmas movie.
P.S – if you wanna watch It’s A Wonderful Life, watch the black and white version. There is a colorized version that looks fucking terrible, an absolute travesty.