Paula Pounstone and Adam Felber discuss the issue.
(FWIW, I agree with them, and voted accordingly when this thread got started.)
Bruce will just have to take his chances.
Reposting this as has become my little tradition.
And this year, John Mclane is shilling Die Hard batteries.
So in that sense, DH is a Christmas movie in the tradition of all those movies and TV specials only made to shill a product. Die Hard is a Sears commercial!
Suppose that, instead of a Christmas party, it had been a retirement party for someone in the company. Would anything of significance in the movie have changed?
Suppose that I were to claim that it’s not a Christmas movie; it’s actually a Hanukah movie, or a Kwanzaa movie, or a Saturnalia movie, because it also takes place at the same time of year as all of those holidays. Would you be able to refute those claims?
And yes, I’m aware that a number of other traditional “Christmas movies” have a similarly-tenuous connection to Christmas. But It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone both at least have a stronger connection than Die Hard does.
Well, then we would had missed some of the best lines of the movie:
Hans Gruber [reading from a shirt of a dead minion]: “Now I have a machine gun… Ho-ho-ho.”
“It’s Christmas, Theo, it’s the time of miracles. So be of good cheer and call me when you hit the last lock.”
Theo : [ Over the CB, as the police SWAT team closes in ] “Alright, listen up guys. 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring — except for the four assholes coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation.”
Remember the bit about McClain holding the final gun on his back with Christmas themed tape that was on an office desk? Hard to have an office party with material like that lying around if it was new year’s, very little gift exchanges going on. And big office parties are harder to get going if it is just Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. 
It is a movie set during Christmas time, sure. Same as It’s a Wonderful Life. Nice film, set during the Season, but not about Christmas.
But it is not about Christmas. Rudolf, the Santa Clause, The Polar Express, White Christmas,Miracle on 34th st, etc, those are about the magic of Christmas. A Christmas Story, too.
So it is not “a Christmas movie”. It is a Christmasy film if you want.
Well in addition to all the quotes (and the song Christmas in Hollis playing in the limo on the way to Nakatomi Plaza), the reason John McClain comes to LA to reconcile with his wife was because it was Christmas. He wouldn’t have come cross country for a retirement party of the big boss of the company.
Only the most hard-hearted among us would posit that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.
Can you give a definition of a “Christmas movie” that includes Home Alone but excludes Die Hard?
Repeating a link from earlier in the thread:
Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie
The rightful conclusion:
The neatest summary I can provide is to say that there are many Christmas elements in the movie. Although the studio did not intend it to be a Christmas movie, some of the film’s key creators did.
Either way, it’s certainly fair to say that Die Hard is regarded as a Christmas movie in popular culture. Like it or not, the association between Die Hard and Christmas is fast increasing and in years to come its Christmassyness will be beyond question.
Future generations will read in wonder that Die Hard was ever thought not to be a Christmas movie and articles such as the one you’re reading now will be seen as nothing but a massive waste of everyone’s time. Imagine that!
Apparently, now it’s a Christmas commercial, pimping Die Hard batteries. No link. I like you people.
I dont think that Wonderful Life and Home Alone are “Christmas Movies” either. They are films that have a christmas setting.
I dont think it is. It is just one of those things that people say to get a rise out of people, without really believing it. It is trolling-lite, since it is usually meant in a jocular fashion, not to be a jerk. Like the supposed hatred of Comic sans, or Nickelback.
The author of the book Christmas in the Movies was interviewed on TCM by Ben Mankiewicz. Ben put the question to him and according to this published expert on Christmas movies, Die Hard is indeed a Christmas movie. Little details like the Christmas party, Christmas decorations, Christmas music, and the entire movie taking place on Christmas Eve are hints that it is a Christmas movie.
I like the standard that Exapno Mapcase used upthread: If you can remove all of the Christmas elements and leave it substantially the same movie, then it’s not a Christmas movie. It’s easy to do that with Die Hard: Like I said before, just change the Christmas party to a retirement party (and really, is tape a rare thing to find in an office?). It’s much more difficult with Home Alone (you need a lot of families all traveling out-of-town at the same time, and you’ve also got a kid who thinks that the major events of the plot are a direct result of his magical Christmas wishes). Maybe you could still do it, but it’d be harder, so it’s safe to say that Home Alone is more of a Christmas movie than Die Hard.
For It’s a Wonderful Life, yeah, most of the movie doesn’t relate to Christmas at all. But the spirit of generosity is a key theme of the movie, and that’s associated with Christmas (even though one hopes the townsfolk would be just as generous at any time of year), and an angel is also fundamental to the movie, and angels are also associated with Christmas.
And it’s been said a lot in this thread over the years - a retirement party wouldn’t explain the building being otherwise empty and it wouldn’t be an impetus for McClane to travel cross country to try and reconcile with his wife. But okay, let’s roll with it for a moment…
So… a family reunion/vacation and a shooting star? That wasn’t hard at all. If we’re changing little things in Die Hard to make it “not a Christmas movie,” we can certainly apply the same logic to Home Alone. And those changes don’t require any fundamental shifts in character motivation or set pieces in the same way switching to a retirement party does.
I guess by this logic, Die Hard is more of a Christmas movie than Home Alone. 
The retirement party explains the otherwise-empty building exactly as well as a Christmas party does. And are you imagining that everyone on the block is going to to the same family reunion? Home Alone depends not just on the kid’s family being out of town; it depends on a large fraction of the neighborhood also being out of town.
Sure if it was done on a holiday Friday when everyone was sent home early, like for 4th of July, etc.
And yes, McClane could come back for other reasons. Sign divorce papers, kids birthday, etc.
Now apply the logic to Rudolf, the Santa Clause, The Polar Express, White Christmas,Miracle on 34th st, etc.
No film at all.