I hate Santa movies.

I hate Santa movies. I love Christmas. I love giving gifts. I love traditions. I love Christmas stories. I hate Santa movies!!

I know it makes me sound Grinchy, but I just don't care. I like a good Christmas movie but Santa movies are just so stupid. I'll tell you what the problem is, they are all the same. SPOILER ALERT - I am about to tell you the basic plot of pretty much every Santa movie you have ever seen or will ever see.

The Santa Plot:
After many years of faithful service Santa is getting ready to retire and needs to find a permanent replacement, enter the proposed new Santa who is unwilling but changes his mind just in time to deliver the toys on Christmas Eve OR it's Christmas Eve and Santa has for some reason been incapacitated (perhaps most enjoyably in Ernest Saves Christmas which is a combination of the two plots) and someone needs to fill in for him and save Christmas.

Aside from the lack of originality, I have a couple major issues with these plots. Being Christian, I am not a fan of what a flood of movies featuring a fat man giving delivering gifts as the lynch pin and sole purpose of the the Christmas holiday does for commercialism.

Even if you are not Christian there is a lot in the Christmas season that you can respect and enjoy. There's a focus on generosity, on love, on service. These are all good things, regardless of what your beliefs are. Of course, if children don't have lots of new presents to open on December 25th then Christmas is ruined, right? WRONG! What the hell kind of message is that anyway?? These movies offer no value, unlike many of the non-Santa Christmas movies, such as It's a Wonderful Life.

Of course there are probably Santa movies that are the exception (that is to say not completely stupid, pointless and mind-numbingly predictable) but the only one that comes to mind is Miracle on 34th Street.

Those are my thoughts, hopefully my crappy attitude doesn't land me on the naughty list! Regardless, I can promise you that Christmas will not be ruined if I don't have presents to open on Christmas morning.