Why Are Popular Christmas Movies So Dark?
There's a good reason Christmas movies are pretty dark before letting joy in.
“A Christmas Carol,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “Last Holiday” explore dark themes of loss and death. So why are they so timeless, joyous, and popular? What can we learn from them about how to care for ourselves?
On the surface, Christmas is a holiday about love, gratitude, generosity, and light. But in real life, for those who observe the holiday, it can bring a lot of pressure to be happy and to show off your ideal life. The reality is, life is not a Hallmark movie. Christmas can be about pain in relationships, disappointment, performance anxiety, and loss. So you may feel guilt, shame, and stigma when things aren’t how they’re “supposed to be.” We have ups and downs with family, relationships, and ourselves. In this way, from year to year, Christmas joy is aspirational at best.
What may make these movies so beloved is that they keep it real. They are about people being unhappy with where they have found themselves in life: stuck, facing a crisis, losing hope. Movies depicting the full range of feelings we have about the holidays are emotionally validating.
Emotional validation is the key to understanding what you really need—even who you really are. It’s a key dimension of good psychotherapy and the first step in self-care and self-talk. You gotta start where you are.
By showing the painful realities of getting through life, these stories take the pressure off, so you can relate to them based on your own lived experience. They start with that empathy you feel for the characters (even Scrooge!) as they go through remorse and loss. This becomes the foundation on which they build revelation, change, and real joy with life as it is.
Spoilers Ahead: Emotional Validation Starts With Real Questions
These Christmas stories ask very therapeutic questions: How do I value my life if I’m going to die soon? How would my loved ones be without me in their life? How can I make up for the time I wasn’t really living?
(For the full effect, click on links below for film clips!)
“A Christmas Carol” is the tale of a greedy, miserable man visited by ghosts who help him go through psychotherapy in one night: exploring his past sources of pain, how they led to feeling disillusioned and getting lost in work, turning away from love, and finally becoming isolated and mean. Upon seeing his own gravestone, Scrooge sees the horror of a world where no one loves him and finally lets in the pain he had been avoiding all his life. He is able to turn toward other people again.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is about what happens when frustrations become overwhelming, and it’s hard to feel gratitude. George Bailey has been making sacrifices all his life, which has left him feeling unfulfilled, and he has finally had it. When contemplating suicide, he is saved by an angel, Clarence, who helps him see what his loved ones would have if George had never been born. Realizing what he was contemplating giving up, George feels how precious life is to him—yes, with all its problems.
“Last Holiday” follows the life of Georgia Byrd, who makes a tight living working in a department store, scrimping and denying herself a lot of pleasures in the name of doing the right thing and not pushing back. It’s a tough life marked by daydreams, being too nervous to ask out a coworker she loves, and kind of being a pushover. It all changes when Georgia is given a terminal diagnosis. She goes through a spiritual crisis (with a wonderful church musical number “Why Me, Lord?!”) and decides to spend her life savings really living, with a trip to a fancy European spa hotel to see a French chef she admires. The transformation leads her to understand how important joy and pleasure are, and how she should stand up for herself. She becomes the life of the party.
Scrooge, George, and Georgia, each at a certain point in the story, powerfully declare “I want to live again!”
3 Steps to Build Emotional Validation With Self-Talk
In a touching scene from the third act of “Last Holiday,” Georgia, speaking to herself in a mirror, says: “Next time, we do things different; we’ll laugh more, we’ll love more. We’ll see the world…and we won’t be so afraid.” Georgia is having an important chat with herself, in a powerful depiction of motivating self-talk at its best. She genuinely shows care for herself, with real admiration. Ask yourself: How comfortable are you with that?
Here are three steps, inspired by these movies, to help you find inspiration this year:
Be real about your feelings. Ask yourself, “How do you feel this holiday season, and how did you get here?” Don’t judge yourself for your authentic emotions. You’re feeling the way you are for valid reasons. Remember how Scrooge really lets go with his “humbugs!”
What would help you get through the holidays? Ask yourself, “If you could do anything you want this year, what would it be?” Be realistic. If it means not going to that family event, fine; see if you can pull it off. Or maybe you need to get something off your chest with a loved one. Consider Georgia’s lesson, and try not to hold back—while being kind.
Resolve to take care of yourself. Say to yourself, “I’ve learned a lesson about what you need around the holidays, and next year I’ll truly focus on giving you what you need.” Write down a list of what you need and how you plan to make it happen next year.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
