There are several movies that have nothing to do with the holidays that have become so traditional at our house that I now consider them holiday movies.
Arsenic & Old Lace - I first saw this one Christmas Eve about 25 years ago and it has become a 12/24 tradition ever since. Which reminds me - time to get a bottle of elderberry wine.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy - probably becuase of their original release dates. Every year sometime around the holidays the extended editions are watched as a marathon.
Time Bandits - Don’t know how this became a Thanksgiving movie but it has been for at least 15 years.
Goldeneye and a handful of other James Bond movies. Goldeneye is because I got an N64 in the fall of '97, and spent way too much time in Dec. '97 and Jan. '98 playing that video game, so the movie association now exists. I think some cable network used to have 15 Days of 007 or something like that in Decembers, too. The Bond movies all seem to be released in November, too.
Well, it isn’t actually a tradition with me, but I think of “Meet Me in St. Louis” as a Christmas movie because it has a Christmas scene where “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” was introduced (and the original lyrics were sadder and were changed for the movie).
The Indiana Jones trilogy and the Star Wars trilogy. It used to be tradition on USA that they would show all six movies back-to-back on Christmas day and my cousins and I would watch them every year.
Even though I own all six movies on DVD now, I still miss that.
For a chunk of the world outside the US and UK, Dinner for One is a New Year’s Eve tradition. Most anyone in the US and UK seem never to have heard of it.
When Harry Met Sally. My mom and I watch it every New Year’s Eve we’re together, and if I’m not going to be with her on New Year’s, we’ll pick a time and watch it at the same time.
The Godfather. I started this tradition at least 15 years ago because it was a nice long movie that I could have in the background while wrapping presents.
I always joke that it’s the perfect holiday movie because it’s all about the importance of family.
The Lion in Winter- it’s set at Christmas in the late 12th century, but not really Christmasy to most people, though the continual family fighting, Mother being let out of jail for the holidays, and saying horrible things that once said can never be unsaid make it seem more like a 1980s Christmas than an 1180s one, so I watch it every holiday season.
I’m thinking it’s the other Christmas joke from the same film:
***James Bond: [in bed with Jones] I was wrong about you.
Dr. Christmas Jones: Yeah, how so?
James Bond: I thought Christmas only comes once a year. ***
I’m the opposite; I never thought of It’s a Wonderful Life as a Christmas film. I first saw it in August, and at the time, it was an obscure Frank Capra film that was very difficult to see. It took me a long time to find it on TV. I wanted to see it because I liked Capra and had read “The Greatest Gift” and wondered how he’d turn it into a full-length movie.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m probably the only person alive who read the story before seeing the movie.
There were a couple years in a row where one station would show the Planet of the Apes movies (the originals). I think it was on Thanksgiving, I guess so you could give thanks that we hadn’t blow it all up yet and let the apes take over. So now I think of them as holiday movies.
It isn’t just for me, I’m sure, but King Kong (the original 1933 one) will always be a Thanksgiving movie for me because growing up I watched it on WWOR on Thanksgiving day every year.
