Salt, Ink & Soul — Humanity Through Food Series
There’s a certain kind of light that only shows up this time of year.
Not the bulbs strung across rooftops or the plastic icicles flickering in windows.
I mean the glow of a television in a dim living room—the kind of light that spills across the carpet like a familiar voice calling you home. The kind that makes the rest of the world feel far away, wrapped in a kind of winter hush.
That’s the light I fell in love with.
When I say I love the Christmas season, I don’t just mean the day. I mean the entire orbit around it—the slow build, the anticipation, the small rituals that become lifelines. The lights, yes. The chill in the air, certainly. But most of all, the movies.
My love of holiday movies began long before streaming existed. Before playlists and algorithms. Before DVDs and VHS tapes. Back when a movie came only once a year, and you had to earn it by waiting.
I remember how the TV commercials would announce that A Charlie Brown Christmas was coming. It felt like a sacred date—one night, one hour, one chance. If you missed it, you missed it. No do-overs. No recording it for later.
You came in from outside early.
You washed up if someone told you to.
You grabbed your spot on the floor or couch—not too close to the TV because a parent had already warned you about “ruining your eyes.”
And when the opening notes played, it felt like the world exhaled.
The same thing happened with How the Grinch Stole Christmas!—the original one. The one with the gravelly voice singing, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.” To this day, I still play that song like a yearly ritual, as if the Grinch’s redemption is a message I need whispered back to me every December.
Those two early films shaped not just my childhood but my taste in Christmas music—the quiet melancholy of “Christmas Time Is Here” and the playful growl of “Mr. Grinch.” They were two sides of the season: hope and humor, softness and mischief.
As I grew older, the list grew richer.
There was Miracle on 34th Street, a story that insists the world can be gentler than it is.
Three ghosts were ushering me through adulthood, arriving through different retellings of A Christmas Carol—one starring George C. Scott, another with Patrick Stewart, and the third, unexpectedly profound, in The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Later came the unconventional additions:
- Fred Claus
- The Wiz
- Sleepless in Seattle
- Last Holiday starring the luminous Queen Latifah
- The Holiday
And, of course, no list is complete without It’s a Wonderful Life with James Stewart—a film that crawls inside your ribcage and whispers, “Do you understand how many lives would break if you disappeared from your own story?”
These movies became more than entertainment.
They became checkpoints—seasonal markers, emotional recalibrations.
Something feels misaligned in me until I sit down and watch them all.
I even look forward to adding new ones each year.
Some fade.
Some stay.
The good ones linger like old friends.
Good holiday films do the same thing to me that good books do.
A real book doesn’t let you skim the surface; it drags you under.
You forget you’re reading.
You live inside the pages.
Movies, even though they hand you the visuals, still manage to sneak past your defenses.
The imagination is less involved, but the emotions are still all yours.
You feel them.
You wear them.
You walk around with them for days afterward.
But there’s something deeper at work in all this.
Because December is beautiful, yes—but it’s also unbearable for so many people.
The lonely.
The grieving.
The single.
The ones who don’t have a home full of noise and company.
The ones who struggle in the silent hours after the festivities end.
Holiday movies do something quiet for those of us walking through that kind of December.
They make space.
They offer warmth that asks for nothing in return.
Sometimes the comfort doesn’t come from a whole room or a crowded table.
Sometimes it comes from a screen glowing softly in the dark—a story reaching across years, wires, and winter air to sit beside you.
These movies don’t fix your Life.
They don’t pay your bills.
They don’t fill the empty chair or soften the ache of absence.
But they lend you their light.
A borrowed light.
Just enough to see by.
Just enough to make the season survivable.
Just enough to remind you that stories—whether read or watched—have always been how we navigate the hardest seasons in community, even when we’re watching alone.
So yes, I love the Christmas season.
Not because it demands cheer.
Not because it promises perfection.
But because it gives me these small rituals—these films that arrive like quiet companions, asking only that I sit down, press play, and let myself feel whatever I feel.
And every December, when the world feels a little colder, a little heavier, a little lonelier than I want to admit—
These stories remind me that even in the darkest stretch of the year,
There is still light worth borrowing.
Kyle J. Hayes
kylehayesblog.com
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