When you watch these [Christmas] movies you know they’re going to have a happy ending and the two people are going to fall in love, and you get to go on a journey with them.
– Candace Cameron Bure

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? I think so. Why? Because in spite of the violence and craziness, it still has a happy ending. 

According to Psychology Today, there are benefits from a journey into the Christmas movie world. They can boost your mood and relieve symptoms of depression. They also increase positive emotions, like hope, joy, and gratitude. Sharing a movie increases intimacy and can improve relationships. A reason that Christmas movies are so popular is that they touch some of our greatest needs. 

God designed us with a heart longing to be loved.

Isn’t that the message of the real Christmas story? That we’re loved – loved by the One who knows everything about us. We never surprise God. It wasn’t until many years after I was born-again that I realized God loved me and forgave not only all of my sins before I committed my life to Christ, but He also loved and forgave all of my sins, past, present and future. What a gracious God!

It’s not because I’ve done anything good like Rudolph (except be a continual mess). It’s not because I was generous and had a change of heart like Scrooge, the Grinch, or even Luther Krank. He loved me when I was a disaster. That’s what drew me to the Savior. My life was hopeless, but I’d heard the gospel and realized that God loved me. Wow! 

God designed us with a heart longing for peace.

One of my favorite movies is Christmas Eve. It’s about a fractured family with a huge breakdown between three adult children and their father. But in the end, they are all reunited. 

For many of us family fragmentation is our history. Someday what the  angelic host announced to those shepherds will happen, Peace on earth (Luke 2:14). Isn’t that what we long for? With the continued breakdown of marriage and the family with so many of them resembling a war zone, we long for peace. It’s why the Prince of Peace came! Because of that first Christmas and Christ’s sacrifice for us, we can have peace with God (Romans 5:1). It’s a heart peace. Though all hell may break loose around us, we can have peace beyond understanding (Philippians 4:7) that will guard our hearts. Someday there will be world peace. It was promised in the Bible that Jesus would come the first time, and the Bible promises that He’s coming back, and when He does, the Lord Jesus will bring true peace. 

God designed us with a heart longing to be free from fear.

As we walk with Scrooge into Christmas future, we fear the unknown for Tiny Tim. We fear the Grinch might really ruin Christmas. All of us dread the unknown. “What might be” hangs over our heads. 

Did you know Hallmark experienced a huge 40% increase in viewership during Covid? “Feel-good” movies help us forget the stuff that keeps us up at night. Fear of disease and death are an ever-present reality. But in Christmas movies everyone lives and goes off into “happily ever after.” 

In the Bible’s Christmas account, the constantly repeated phrase is “fear not.” Jesus came to conquer fear and someday there will be no more fear!

God designed us with a heart longing to be free from pain.

The only thing worse than a fear of death is pain from death. Loss is all around us. For many family gatherings there’s an empty chair. That need to escape pain is a draw to the make-believe world of Christmas movies. Rudolph is finally accepted. The Abominable Snowman becomes part of the team. In Miracle on 34^th Street, there’s the beginning of a new family and home. 

Pain free is coming! The final chapter of the Bible’s Christmas story is found in the book of Revelation. He (God) will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore… (21:4).

God designed us with a heart that longs for a world free from evil.

Evil barely exists in Christmas movies. There are no child abductions, rapes, or murders. Who doesn’t want to live in that world? In the end in every Christmas movie, there are no more bad guys. Harry and Marv go to jail. The Grinch gets a new larger heart. And because of Christmas, because Jesus came – someday there will be a new heaven and a new earth – totally free from evil. 

God designed us with a heart longing for so much more than this world.

Do we want to live in a Christmas movie? Do we want to live where love is so easy and life so shallow? Do we want to live in a land where there aren’t struggles, triumphs, problems, purpose and even a little pain? Do we really want to live where there aren’t obstacles and victories or even real pressures and real people? I don’t think so.

Christmas movies are wonderful, but I don’t know of one where you find God and a Savior. There’s no true redemption and the promise of something ultimately better to come. Yet, one day, every Christ-follower will live in a land that’s perfect, the kind of perfect that makes a Christmas movie look like a cheap carnival ride, silly and short-lived, shallow and unsatisfying. We will live with Jesus. 

And in the end our bruised and battered hearts long for Home with Jesus in heaven. It’s a God-given longing. But it’s a longing no Christmas movie can ever fill. Because at some point, we must turn the TV off or exit the theater to go back to face reality. We must face the stresses, fears, pains, and all the evil of this world. 

So, while some might say that Christmas movies are shallow, the need that they meet isn’t. And equally true is that they can’t really meet that need. They only help us to set it aside and forget it for a bit. They can’t heal a heart that needs to heal. We need a much Higher Source than any and all of the Christmas movies to do that. 

That Source is the real reason we celebrate Christmas. God came to earth and suffered all the stress, fear, pain, and evil that we encounter in this world. He came so that someday we can live in a perfect world with Him.

Christmas movies aren’t heaven and when we open our Bibles, we don’t find an escape. We do find the One who helps us and gives us the grace to face this world. He gives us hope of redemption and of a better world to come. In the end, that’s what we truly need! The true Christmas story ends with “Happily Forever After”!