Christmas/Time

Welcome to Day 12 of the 2022 Virtual Advent Tour, hosted by my friend Sprite at Sprite Writes. For this day of the Tour, I’m going to talk a little bit about Time, because there’s nothing like Christmastime to draw my attention to the passage of time. The closer the holiday gets, the faster time seems to move. It’s a phenomenon that became particularly pronounced after I had children. During the years when my kids were small, the days of December would whip by so fast that I could almost hear them buzzing past me. Life isn’t as hectic now that my children are older, but time still flies by at an alarming rate at this time of year.

For that reason, and others, the holidays can be stressful, and one of my favorite methods for coping with the stress and focusing on the happy elements of Christmas is to watch Christmas movies, especially Christmas rom-coms. In keeping with today’s theme of Time, one of my favorite subgenres is Christmas movies that involve time travel, and I have composed a list of a few that I have watched and enjoyed over the last few years.

12 Dates of Christmas (2011): Amy Smart plays Kate, a woman who is intent on getting back together with her ex-boyfriend and irritated about being set up on a Christmas Eve blind date with a man named Miles, played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. After a disastrous first date with Miles, Kate gets trapped in a time loop and has to do the day (and the date) over and over again, giving her plenty of time to discover not only that Miles is a great guy, but also that she has a lot of growing to do.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019): Vanessa Hudgens plays Brooke, a teacher whose last relationship left her feeling down on love and no longer believing in knights in shining armor. Josh Whitehouse plays Sir Cole, a Medieval knight who is magically whisked to the future to fulfill his quest to become a True Knight. Both Hudgens and Whitehouse are adorable, and the time difference is handled with little fuss, so the story doesn’t get bogged down. It’s pure Christmas fluff.

Just in Time for Christmas (2015): Eloise Mumford plays Lindsay, a psychology professor with a bright career ahead of her. Michael Stahl–David plays her boyfriend Jason, and the cast also includes time-travel pros Christopher Lloyd and William Shatner. Torn between love and career, Lindsay is magically transported three years into the future to witness what her life will be like if she sacrifices one for the other. It’s a cute movie worth at least a single viewing, if only to see Shatner sporting a most unusual beard and hamming it up during his two onscreen appearances.

It’s Christmas, Carol! (2012): Emmanuelle Vaugier plays Carol, a Scrooge-like publisher, and Carrie Fisher plays a ghost who visits Carol at Christmastime to warn her about what will happen if she doesn’t change her horrible ways. I first watched this movie a few years ago, and it didn’t make much of an impression on me, but that was before Carrie Fisher’s death. Now, to see her come back as a ghost is a certain kind of awesome, and she makes the film worth watching.

Scrooged (1988): Bill Murray plays a Scrooge-like television executive, and Karen Allen plays his love interest Claire, who is virtually his exact opposite. The film has a wacky and wonderful supporting cast that includes Bobcat Goldthwait and Carol Kane, among others. Bill Murray can be abrasive at times, but not so much in this film. His over-the-top style is part of what makes this bizarro Dickens-inspired comedy work.