I feel safe in saying Christmas is our most beloved holiday. There are festive lights, Christmas music everyplace you turn and oh so many TV shows and movies focused on Christmas. The love of Christmas is handed down from generation to generation as the wonder of the season in a child’s eye is replaced by viewing the wonder on the faces of that former child’s children. 

At work, we often keep a TV on as background noise and in case any major news stories break. We’ve gone through  a wide variety of Christmas-themed offerings this month and one plot kept recurring which I found interesting. For as secure as Christmas is in each of our hearts and minds, if an alien (presumably from one of those drones we’ve been hearing so much about lately) came down and learned about Christmas solely from shows and movies, they might be led to believe Christmas is the most vulnerable of our holidays.  

Think about the theme of most of the Christmas shows we annually watch. Somebody is always “saving Christmas." In the eyes of Hollywood, the fate of Christmas is just hanging on by a thread. For all the things that have saved it, either Christmas is constantly imperiled or really, really easy to save.

Just run a search on the streaming service of your choice for the words “saves Christmas.” You will find that a wide selection of our most famous and not-so famous characters have rescued the holiday. “Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas,” “Elmo Saves Christmas,” “Kirk Cameron Saving Christmas,” Mickey Mouse Saves Christmas,” “The Night They Saved Christmas,” “Pixi Saves Christmas,” “The Dog Who Saved Christmas,” “Elfette Saves Christmas,” “Goo Goo Gaga Saves Christmas,” and “Saving Christmas,” starring Ed Asner, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Christmas-saving movies. And dare I fail to mention perhaps Christmas’ greatest hero, Ernest P. Worrell, who starred in the all-time classic “Ernest Saves Christmas.” 

And that’s not even mentioning all the countless other movies which share Christmas being saved as a theme, though it wasn’t necessarily in the title. I’d say Ralphie’s Christmas was saved by a BB gun and Elf certainly saved Christmas by singing loud for all to hear. Why, some local citizens even declared Christmas was saved this year when the City of McMinnville moved the synthetic skating rink back downtown after briefly setting it up in the Milner Recreation Center Parking Lot. If that’s all it takes to ruin Christmas, it is a very vulnerable holiday indeed. 

And all of that is before we even get to our former and future President who likes to take credit for making it OK to say "Christmas." Perhaps I missed something but I never remember a time when it wasn’t OK. I’m the editor of a newspaper that prints the word Christmas countless times and has done it 37 times in this column. If there were some mysterious entity trying to wage a war on Christmas in media, it must not have made it to College Street. 

So thanks to all our mighty heroes who have saved Christmas multiple times. Count me grateful. Merry Christmas everybody! 

Standard Managing Editor Seth Wright can be reached at editor@southernstandard.com