It's a Wonderful Life: Merry Christmas

I was going to sit here and write about "It's a Wonderful Life", maybe explain its significance in the great Capra canon, review its legacy from its humble beginnings as a modest success to the pop culture status it has achieved through numerous television showings which has turned it into the most beloved Christmas movie of all time. But instead, something happened last night to inspire to take a different angle.

Everyone who knows me knows that the worst kept secret I have is "It's a Wonderful Life" is my absolute favorite movie. I watch it many times during the Christmas season, I love the story, I love Jimmy Stewart's performance, I also love Henry Travers as Clarence the greatest Angel ever depicted on film, I love the great character actor Thomas Mitchell as George's absent minded Uncle Billy, and I think Donna Reed's Mary made probably the pitch perfect honeymoon for George he could ever ask for.

But last night was a special treat for me. My dad and I were alone at home since we already had Christmas on Saturday with family. I bought him a chess set for Christmas and asked if he wanted to have a game. So we did, but he also knew that "It's a Wonderful Life" was playing on television, so he suggested we play in the living room so we could watch the movie at the same time. It was nice having that moment with my dad, I wasn't paying attention much to the movie, I would look up at times when my favorite scenes were on. One poignant moment for me in the movie has always been when George and his father are having a heart to heart talk at the dinner table. It's the kind of conversation I suppose many sons have with their father at some point in their lives, and it seemed all the more poignant watching this scene with my dad knowing full well this could've been us a few years ago.

I never mentioned this before but part of the reason this film is special to me is how much of my dad is in George Bailey. I don't think he has ever contemplated suicide, but I've seen him with a lot of frustrations with his job knowing it's probably not what he had planned for himself when he was younger. He's told me he always wanted to be a train engineer, even when my brother and I were kids, he always bought us a train set for Christmas, but he would end up playing with it more than we did. He's got a train set of his own now along with train whistle and engineer hat, he's like a big kid around it, and it's nice to see how happy a simple thing like that makes him, it's like me after I watched a really, really good movie.

I've watched "It's a Wonderful Life" many times before, but I love it more when I get to watch it with someone else, particularly when it's with someone like my dad while playing chess. It was a nice quiet Christmas Eve, and I think it gave me something the holidays are suppose to give: Peace.