Most people have a long list of favorite Christmas/Holiday movies. My list includes childhood favorites (Frosty the Snowman; A Charlie Brown Christmas) and classic, irreverent comedies (e.g., National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation). However, among the more dramatic Christmas classics, my two favorites are A Christmas Carol (original story by Charles Dickens, 1843) and It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946). These movies are epic in scale, and they capture the emotional depths that many of us experience during the holidays.
The holidays elicit a lot of emotion: excitement, anticipation, nostalgia, and joy as well as longing, grief, loneliness, and frustration. They are a meaningful catalyst for reflection and memories. Part of the powerful emotional nature of the holidays is based in the fact that the holidays are a time of year where we revisit the same songs, we recreate the same traditions, and we see close family and friends at the same time every year. The holidays are supposed to be a time of giving, of joy, of relating deeply to people, and of connecting to important spiritual traditions.
For me, Christmas traditions elicit memories of years going back to my early childhood. I recognize the important people who are now present in my life (my wife and children, my in-laws). I remember Christmas Eve or Christmas night parties with family that are no longer with us (my Aunt Betsy, my grandmother, “Nan”). And I get to enjoy the same traditions with my parents, my brother, and family friends.
The writers of It’s a Wonderful Life (Goodrich, Hackett, & Capra) and A Christmas Carol (Dickens) knew that Christmas is a rich time for personal emotions. Each movie presents an intimate story of a man from childhood to adulthood, and each main character is confronted with a major personal crisis. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is a successful manager of the family business (the Bailey Brother’s Building and Loan) and a devoted family man. We see that, at various points in his life, George has significantly affected the lives of people in town. For example, George, as a school-aged boy, stops the town pharmacist (bereft from the loss of his son) from sending an improperly filled prescription. Young George informs the pharmacist that the pill bottle, instead of containing a helpful medication, is filled with a poisonous chemical that would have killed the customer. George has also sacrificed many of his personal wishes, including a wish to travel the world and become an international businessman.
In A Christmas Carol, the famous miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, is a different man than George Bailey. Scrooge’s and Bailey’s choices are opposite each other. While Bailey chose to devote himself to people, Scrooge chose to pursue his business and material interests over the people in his life. He is preoccupied only with the acquisition of wealth and the success of his business, while being personally isolated and miserable toward the people living around him.
At a pivotal point in each of these Christmas tales, both men examine their lives through a supernatural encounter. Following a crisis with his business, George Bailey is convinced he is a burden to the people in his life. He says he’d be better off dead than alive. Bailey meets an angel, named Clarence, that shows him what his hometown would be if he were never born. In this alternate reality, his younger brother, a war hero, would have drown as a child without George to save him. His mother would have struggled financially after her husband’s death and would spend the rest of her life running a boarding house for drifters. Also, the affordable neighborhoods Bailey’s family business had built for families would be replaced by ramshackle housing, run by an uncaring billionaire.
Scrooge, for his part, faces four Christmas spirits. He is told by the ghost of his former business partner that he is wasting his life, and will be confronted by the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. We see Scrooge revisit cheerful moments from his childhood and young adulthood as well as his abandonment by his father and his choice to put his career over his relationship with a caring young woman. In the Christmas Present, Scrooge is confronted with the people in his life that he ignores. He learns that Bob Cratchit, his employee, has an ill son who will die without proper medical care. He watches his nephew enjoy a Christmas party, while the guests mock Scrooge. Then, in the Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge is confronted with the greatest of all issues: his mortality. He learns that people mock him after his death; his enormous wealth amounts to no meaningful value following death.
These moments of personal crisis for George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge have been framed in philosophical terms as an “existential crisis”. Each man is confronted with the reality of their existence. They each face the question: what is/was the worth of their lives? The philosophy and mental health literature addresses these issues in depth. My favorite author , Irvin Yalom, writes extensively on these issues. He talks about how our confrontation with the “givens of existence” – mortality, aloneness in the world, life choices, and meaninglessness – create anxiety, but can also inform a more purposeful life.
For example, though we may fear the end of our consciousness, a focus on the impermanence of life can also highlight the significance of the time we have left. Or, though we may surmise that our life doesn’t present itself with immediate, measurable purpose or meaning, we can still choose to define what is meaningful to us and choose to engage in these experiences.
Following their respective existential crises, Bailey and Scrooge both embrace the significance of their lives. Scrooge recognizes the lack of deep, meaningful relationships in his life and he devotes his time and money to connecting with his nephew and his employee’s family, who become a surrogate family for him. In George Bailey’s case, he realizes the importance of the wonderful family and other people in his life and his role in the prosperity of the town.
Similarly, many of us face these personal examinations during the holidays, intentionally or unintentionally. We’re faced with questions like: Who have been the important people in my life? Who are the important people now? What kind of year has it been and what do I hope for next year?This holiday season, I’ve chosen to use these deep personal reflections to inform a sort of enhanced New Year’s Resolution. Most years, many of us create a small personal goal for the new year (e.g., lose weight, eat healthier, exercise). Though we make these goals in earnest, the shallowness of these goals usually result in abandoning them after one to three weeks. But, what if this new year, we made a goal to enhance a deeper personal area of our life (like Bailey and Scrooge)? What if we reconnected with an estranged family member or friend? What if we spent more intentional, meaningful time with ourselves or others? What if we expanded our spiritual life?
In Martin Seligman’s book, Flourish (2012), he defines the deeper areas of personal experience in our lives among five broader categories: Positive Emotion, Engagement (losing oneself in an experience), Relationships, Meaning (areas of purpose in our life), and Accomplishments (personal achievement obtained for the sake of itself, not some secondary gain). Perhaps each of us could enhance one or more of these personal areas of our lives. If you take this challenge on, I’d encourage you to make the first step specific and measurable. For example, “I’m going to reconnect with my friend Mark” is not specific enough. “I’m going to call Mark right now” is specific.
To up the intensity of this challenge, what if the new year was your last on Earth? What would you really like to experience in the new year?
I’ll leave you on that intense thought. 🙂 I hope you all have a meaningful Christmas and Holiday Season!
Dr. Ryan's Writings 