Kerry Parnell: Santa, it’s all the festive films I Love, Actually

It’s frankly a relief when December rolls around and we can legitimately watch a sack-full of happy, schmaltzy, life-affirming movies for four weeks, wrote KERRY PARNELL

Love Actually. How many times have you seen this Christmas staple?

I wish we could have Christmas movies all year.

It’s officially the season to be TV-jolly and thank Old St Nick for that. It’s frankly a relief when December rolls around and we can legitimately watch a sack-full of happy, schmaltzy, life-affirming movies for four weeks.

Perhaps studios might take note of the enthusiasm for streaming Christmas films and transfer some of the season’s goodwill into entertainment for the remaining 11 months of the year?

If they swapped even one per cent of the “miserable-divorced-detective-in-a-gloomy-location-solving-a-gruesome-murder-of-a-woman” output we suffer the rest of the time, it would be a start.

I unashamedly love Christmas movies.

Like a televisual advent calendar, they’re sweeter than chocolate as you count down to Dec 24th.

You can unwrap something new, like this year’s Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy; treat yourself to some trusty favourites, like It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf, or – sigh – Die Hard; then finish with the all-time best, which in our house is The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Polar Express.

Eddie Murphy as Chris Carverin Candy Cane Lane. Picture: Supplied

I don’t even care that scriptwriters ran out of plots 57 years ago and recycle the same old ones. It’s good for my environment.

You are guaranteed the nonbeliever dad/surly teen/stressed single-parent will save the spirit of Christmas in the end.

Or the couple pretending to be together to fool their overbearing parents will fall in love under the mistletoe. Who knew! All of us. But even though I can tell what the ending is going to be from the title scene, I still weep.

When else can you legitimately watch super-cheesy movies without anyone questioning your sanity? It’s brilliant. I’ve bookmarked one this year on the Hallmark Channel, called A Merry Scottish Christmas, which looks superbly-saccharine; like OD-ing on eggnog.

Keira Knightley and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Love Actually

And I don’t even subscribe to the Hallmark Channel. But it has everything you could ever put on your Christmas-film-list – a castle, blow-dries, knitwear, kilts and a mother who reveals she’s a secret duchess. “This is the best Christmas I’ve had in a long time,” says a suspiciously-Meghan-alike Lacey Chabert to Scott Wolf, who, if his forehead moved, would look like he’s wondering how he got from Party of Five to the Firth of Forth. As long as the duchess doesn’t unwrap Endgame, we’re all in for a royally-good time. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?

Hopefully it will also include the other compulsory Christmas movie tropes, which include: snow, no matter where in the world it’s located; luxury accommodation, whether a country cottage, castle or Home Alone house covered in lights; ice-skating; co-ordinated hats and scarves; presents in beribboned boxes and carol-singers.

This is before we get to the storyline, which must include any, or all of the following: a grinch, often The Grinch; harried single-parent; Santa in need of rescuing; elves, good or bad; elf who leaves the North Pole for the city; main character who leaves the city for a small town/North Pole; nonbeliever who sees the Christmas light; the plot of A Christmas Carol. I could go on, but I have a world limit.

The good news is “Christmas comfort movies” are good for you – watching favourite, uplifting films has been proven to have psychological benefits, as well as giving you styling ideas for new sweaters.

They are, as they say, the gift that keeps giving.

Originally published as Kerry Parnell: Santa, it’s all the festive films I Love, Actually