Son of a Nutcracker! And Other Socially Acceptable Swears

What's your favorite Christmas movie? Now before you gleefully shout your answer out in a public space and alienate yourself from your friends or coworkers, remember that I can't hear you, so take a second to think. What Christmas movies would even make my top 10? What parameters does Dana put on this choice? Does Die Hard really count as a Christmas movie?

Now, to be fair, I don't need you to answer, because I have used the power of math to determine what your favorite already is. I hear you scoff now. "Nerd!" they all say. But give me just a few minutes of your time to prove my point.

I have finally found a use for my Undergraduate minor and have performed a statistical analysis on the results of a scientific survey...blah, blah, blah...Wow, I just bored myself. What I really did was ask the cast and staff of KVTA's Elf Jr. what their favorite Christmas movie was and found some interesting trends. If you have seen the 2003 film (and if you haven't, what rock have you been hiding under!), you know the familiar beats of this show: Buddy the Elf discovers he is human and embarks on an adventure to far away New York City to find his father and hilarity ensues. But, of course, the transition to a full length musical and Jr. show make this a unique experience.

The results of this highly un-scientific survey fall into three categories, based on the age of the subject. And I predict that your favorite movie will fit nicely into the appropriate category as well. I would love to hear you sing the praises of how accurate my predictions are, so please leave a comment. As an interesting aside, these movie trends each highlight a distinct aspect of director Paula Sutter's latest KVTA show!

The first category is probably the easiest to predict. For people who are slightly older than me (Gen X, Baby Boomers), they draw comfort from the feature films of their childhood. Their memories are of visiting the theater as a child and of the repeated viewings on TV throughout the years. Their favorite Christmas movies are It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, and even the short form Rankin-Bass TV features like Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. Generally, these were produced and released before 1980. These shows are known for their unforgettable lead characters and heartwarming musical numbers. Both of which are strengths of Elf Jr. Buddy, Jovie, Walter, and even the man in red himself, Santa Claus, steal scenes with unimaginable pep and Christmas cheer. And the ensemble cast lends their voices numerous times to the bombastic score, guaranteed to give you that fuzzy Christmas feeling. After all, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."

The second category is the one that, as a not old (but also not young) father, I was surprisingly not familiar with. As film and television have given way to the ease of streaming entertainment, the sheer number of movies and TV programs have exploded in every possible category. When asked for their favorite Christmas movie, so many young cast members named movies that I have never seen or heard of. I guess that's what happens when you get old. I mean older, old-er, not old, I'm not old, ha, ha, LOL, :). They named movies that were created by specific streaming services and that are only available on those services: The Christmas Chronicles, Christmas on the Square, and any number of other movies produced in the years since the streaming services began financing their own films. These movies are available all the time in your home, and are so much more available to your children to watch multiple times, even outside the normal holiday season. Compared to earlier movies, in general, their production values are in many cases also higher, which is very evident in their sets and costumes. Many also have very creative productions in which their large casts coordinate huge scenes. Much of the rehearsal of Elf Jr. that I was able to sit in on was dedicated to the approval of the many, many, many costumes and the set crew planning the movement of extensive scene changes. The rest was focused on the huge choreographed numbers at the North Pole and in the streets of New York carried by limitless dance energy and dozens and dozens of youth sized jazz shoes. I certainly was excited to see both in this production.

Before we talk about the final category, I want to point out what might be considered an Honorable Mention category. It is the kids (and adults) who chickened out and said that Elf is their favorite Christmas movie. And while this may truly be their favorite movie, I will still blame the recency bias for them taking the easy way out.

The final group of Christmas movie favorites seems obvious to me. My research shows that Millennial birth years range from 1981-1996. So as a solid Millennial, it makes sense to me that Millennials and Gen Zers will always make time for movies like Home Alone, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Polar Express, The Grinch, The Santa Clause, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Scrooged, A Christmas Story, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and, yes, even Elf. But what I really found interesting is the number of cast members who chose movies that were released 20-30 years before they were born! In my opinion as a semi-professional statistician and journalist, this shows that our favorites are not the movies that were new when we were young; we love the movies that our parents made us watch. While I was alive for the release of all of the movies listed above, I did not see any of them in the theater. I saw all of them as rentals from the video store that was next to the laundromat on Court Street. And who got to pick these movies? Not me; I only got to pick a free sports movie each time we went. I'm pretty sure I've seen Wrestlemania IX about 20 times. Of course, Gen Zers have never seen a video store, but all of these movies are available on streaming services.

Elf Jr. is exactly what Millennials and Gen Zers (and everyone else, for that matter) are looking for in a Christmas production. Everyone knows the feeling they get when Kevin finally sees his mom, or when Ralphie get the Red Rider BB gun, or when John McClane drops Hans Gruber off of Nakatomi Plaza. Oh, wait, we didn't decide on that one yet. But Elf Jr. is filled with these moments. I hope smiling is your favorite, because you won't be able to stop at Lincoln Cultural Center on November 23 at 2 pm or 7 pm and November 24 at 2 pm. Tickets are available at www.kvta.org.

Dana James has always pictured himself with the youthful exuberance of Kevin McCallister or Cindy Lou Who, but now he more resembles the cynicism of Clark Griswold. I mean, look at this picture! But be kind and lie to him, will you?