while the latter is a bit too grimly murderous for this time of year. Its Christmas trappings and even its use of Vaughn Monroe singing Let It Snow over the closing credits can't quite push it into the festive bracket.
Bearing all that in mind, here are my five favourite Christmas-oriented films, a collection so diverse that they defy any particular numerical order.
1. It's a Wonderful Life
Yes, parts of it are overly quaint and I have a bit of an issue with the villain being wheelchair-bound for no better reason than possibly to explain his bitterness (has my political correctness gone mad???). However Frank Capra's film still packs a weighty emotional punch, with Jimmy Stewart being pulled back from the edge of despair by Clarence the Angel and seeing how dire people's lives would have become had he never been born. The movie has enough grit to make the sentiment work, and you've got to admire how it combines small-town values with liberal politics in a way that would surely annoy the hell out of certain Presidents-elect. We need a bit of that to round off 2016.
2. Bad Santa
I know someone who'll want to smack me around the head for including this one. Here's the thing about Bad Santa - yes, it's as piss-soaked as Die Hard is drenched in blood, yes it reeks of cigarette ash and bad taste for most of its running time... but at its ailing heart, BS as much a redemption story as It's a Wonderful Life. Really. I wouldn't lie to you. Billy Bob Thornton is utterly objectionable as the self-hating alcoholic Santa of the title (he puts the 'grot' in Santa's grotto), with nary a redeeming feature - except, that is, the glimmer of feeling he has for Thurman Merman, the snotty but guileless kid on the poster. That boy delivers the funniest, most moving child performance I've ever seen, by the way. This film brought me to tears twice, the fist time I watched it - once with pure laughter, once with that elusive amused-and-moved-all-at-once combo. Watch it (if you have the stomach) and guess which bits I'm talking about. Oh, and consign Bad Santa 2 to the 'Pretend It Was Never Made' file. It's a cynical cash-in with all the original's crudity and little of its heart.
3. Elf
If you haven't seen it... how did that happen? If you have, which bit are you remembering right now? The sequence where Buddy, the only human in Santa's workshop, realises he's not actually an elf? The bit where he attempts to hug the raccoon? The montage where he arrives in New York? That incident with the taxi? The one with the Christmas tree? His demonstration of how to sing? His reaction to the phony department store Santa? His breakfast with his new family? His first date? His encounter with Peter Dinklage's pretentious children's author? ('He's an angry elf.') Some other sensational bit that momentarily escapes me? Elf is the most delightfully silly Christmas film ever, bar none, with Will Ferrell supremely funny as Buddy and James Caan the antidote as his Scrooge-lite curmudgeon of a father. You might need this film as a cleanser after Bad Santa, I should add.
4. Gremlins
Okay - to some extent we're back in Die Hard territory here, in that the film is not actually about Christmas - it's just set around the holiday. Also there's quite a lot of off-camera slaughter and the festive setting mainly serves as a contrast to the dark comedy mayhem. (The bleakest laugh in the whole film is the heroine's story of how she discovered there was no Santa - you'll cringe or guffaw, depending on your sense of humour.) Gremlins is the funniest monster movie I've ever seen - and its titular critters lay waste to tinsel-wrapped small-town America with cackling glee. My favourite scene? When hero Billy's mother tackles the gremlins who have invaded her kitchen - putting both blender and microwave oven to memorable use. Oh, and Gremlins represents the only time I've ever had a snog during a cinema visit - so for me this film will always feel Christmassy.
5. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Never heard of it? I wouldn't have either, but for a friend with a more encyclopedic knowledge of cinema than I will ever have. I thank him to this day for his recommendation. Preston Sturges wrote and directed this 1944 screwball comedy classic, bringing to life a wonderful cast of characters including the inept Norval Jones and the woman he adores, Trudy Kockenlocker. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek goes places plotwise you wouldn't believe of a 1940s comedy. It's fast-talking, massively irreverent, shockingly cynical, wildly funny and sweetly romantic - with an ending to warm your heart like the mulled wine you're drinking as accompaniment, and then laugh so hard you snort said mulled wine out of your nose.
And that, my film-loving friends, is surely what Christmas is all about. Here's wishing you a merry one.
PS The Muppet Christmas Carol is great as well, before people start giving me a hard time.
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