Top 10 Holiday Movies

• I have always loved the holiday season. For 15 years I worked in the music/entertainment industry, and Thanksgiving to New Year's was the busiest, most profitable time for everyone involved in that business. Usually that period accounted for about 25% of the year's profits, so spreading Holiday Cheer was secondary to profits, but I still found a way to always do both.
  
  The key for me was the fact that these movies and CD's were always playing around me, from 8am until 9pm, so it was easy to get in the holiday spirit. Over the years I compiled quite a collection of holiday movie and music favorites to watch/listen to over and over again. I would like to share them here.
  
  Top 10 Holiday Movies
  1. It's A Wonderful Life
  2. Holiday Inn
  3. Christmas In Connecticut
  4. A Christmas Story
  5. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
  6. Home Alone (I am even an extra in this film)
  7. Charlie Brown Christmas (not a movie, but still great)
  8. Miracle on 34th Street (the old one)
  9. The Bishop's Wife (again, the old one)
  10. A Christmas Carol (the 1951 version)
  
  I am sure everyone has their own favorites and for their own reasons, but these are mine and I will probably try to watch most of these during December.
  
  Holiday Music
  
  My favorites, although not in any order, as they change pretty frequently:

• Frank Sinatra - The Sinatra Christmas Album
• Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
• George Winston - December
• Nat King Cole - The Christmas Album
• A very Special Christmas - the First, original one
• The Three Tenors Christmas
• Michael Doucet - A Cajun Christmas (a very good album)
• The Hampton String Quartet - What if Mozart Wrote...Christmas albums (two excellent Christmas music CD's, all done by a String Quartet)
• Hardrock, Cocoa, & Joe (if you grew up in the Chicago area, you probably know what I mean)
• Andy Williams - The Christmas Album

I do have an affinity for the older stuff, but I also enjoy and embrace the new movies and music as well. During December, there's really nothing better than sitting in front of the fire with a Baileys and coffee, and one of these movies on the TV or one of these CD's on the stereo.

Jack Buoscio