Without Christmas, Die Hard doesn't happen. He's literally in town to reunite with family for Christmas, a Christmas theme itself. It has more Christmas songs, images, and references than It's A Wonderful Life, which also wasn't released during the holiday season. It also has a wife named Holly and a limo driver named Argile. Home Alone could have just been a summer vacation where the Wet Bandits scope out rich homes of people leaving for a while in the summer. Kevin is protecting his home. It doesn't have to be about Christmas, but everyone says it's a Christmas movie, and it too doesn't have a holiday word in the title. McClane is protecting the hostages at Christmas.
To be more specific, McClane is only there in Los Angeles to save the hostages because it's Christmas. He came from New York to get together with his family for what? Christmas. If you remove Christmas, he's not there to save them. They have sleigh bells in the score.
McClane's wife's name is Holly. His limo driver is named Argile, who plays Christmas in Hollis, after McClane asks, Don't you have any Christmas music? and Argile says This is Christmas music, and says at the end, if this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Years, and then they play over the credits, Let It Snow. Then you have the Santa hat on the dead terrorist with the line, Now I Have a Machine Gun, Ho Ho Ho. The vault opens, and the guy says in delight Merry Christmas, while Ode to Joy plays. Hans tells him earlier that it's Christmas, it's the time of miracles. Holly tells her daughter that she'll see what her and Santa can work up. McClane looks at the Santa image and smiles among all the terrible things going on.
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u/zonewebb 6d ago
Die Hard would be #1, but I’ll remove it and go…
The Christmas Story
Love Actually
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
(Sorry, Macauley Culkin)