But both Die Hard and Home Alone do have Christmas, as a unique holiday, as central parts of their plots.
The robberies in both are built around the timing of Christmas, because it’s the only holiday of the year, really the only day of the year, in which both Nakitomi Plaza and the rich neighborhood would be completely or nearly-completely empty.
Hans Gruber wanted only the Nakitomi people there, and only because he wanted the password to the vault. Any other day, and there’d be hundreds or maybe thousands of people in that building. His escape plan relied on being able to kill all the witnesses in such a fashion that it would be very difficult to prove the robbers weren’t among the dead. Can’t do that so easily with hundreds of people.
Similarly, the Wet Bandits had staked out the neighborhood, knowing that all the rich families would be away on vacation, so they could rob all the houses at their leisure, without worrying that someone would notice activity at one house, that they knew was supposed to be empty. The only day on which you could reasonably expect them to all be away at the same time would be Christmas.
Also, the neighborhood is empty, so they can’t find anyone to check on Kevin. And the Mom has such a hard time getting home because all the flights are either cancelled due to weather or fully booked.
Well, in my opinion, you could have a private corporate event celebrating the completion of the building’s construction, which will be opening in the morning with a ribbon cutting ceremony combined with Holly facing a decision to commit to a promotion and a renewed contract vs renewed family involvement and you have the same movie, except for the mood whiplash of Christmas to murder.
But would they have already stored all those bearer bonds in the vault, if the building has just been completed? And there’d still be lots more people there. Even if no other tenants have moved in yet, you’d still need building staff and the like, which increases the number of witnesses they would have to deal with. Letting such staff go home early on Christmas Eve makes sense, but not having them there for the day the building officially opens? Implausible.
Ahhhh…the revival of this thread is as sure a harbinger of the Christmas season as the appearance of the pop-up Hickory Farms store at North Star Mall. Jingle those bells, y’all!
And yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie in my book.
There is nothing about Christmas in Jingle Bells but it’s a Christmas song. Similarly, there was a companion thread to this one asking if Linus and Lucy (the Charlie Brown theme) is a Christmas song. Most people (not me but most) consider it one.
As I wrote in a post last year I think, many people consider Lord of the Rings a Christmas movie now because they all came out in December and people tend to rewatch them around the holidays.
