As I was watching Christmas Bloody Christmas this morning on Shudder, I realized that I had seen a lot of Christmas movies this year and that this might be the perfect opportunity to create a new category/Award for the Year in Review. So, I created the banner that is above this post and came up with my favorite X-Mas Movies of the Year.

Of course, the letter X is big in the geek world, so it felt natural to use it instead of writing out the word Christmas. Looking back over the years, there have been several epic Christmas movies. I watch The Muppet Christmas Carol every year. The constant argument over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie rages on. I loved the animated Klaus a few years ago on Netflix. Just to name a few.

Runners-Up for 2022: The film that would have been number two on a list of Christmas movies for 2022 was Spirited, a fun musical movie featuring Ryan Reynolds and Will Farrell, once again tapping into the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. The music in that film was excellent and Ferrell provided some solid work. Another big film was the long time sequel, A Christmas Story Christmas on HBO Max. Bringing back several of the original actors from A Christmas Story found all of the nostalgia for the season. Marvel Studios provided us with a special presentation on Disney + of The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which included Drax and Mantis kidnapping Kevin Bacon as they tried to boosts the spirits of Peter Quill. I saw Christmas Bloody Christmas just this morning on Shudder and found the robot Santa Claus slasher that I did not know that I needed. Then, there were two Netflix films that were not particular favorites of mine, but I would include on this list at the bottom. That would be Falling for Christmas and the animated Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. Both very disappointing, especially Scrooge which somehow messed up the easiest of all stories.

The X-Mas Movie of the Year…

Violent Night

David Harbour starred in Violent Night, a film that was a surprise because of how much they actually spent on characterization and the depth of the story. It is not just Santa Claus being a bad ass. Of course, he is a bad ass. This was a hoot of a film with a ton of fun and some serious violence. And it is one of my favorite movies of the year.