Words of the outside world. Reactor: All of Reactor’s Short Fiction in 2024. Hat tip to A.
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Supposition. It’s A Wonderful Life is a reverse A Christmas Carol.
I came to this conclusion when I was noodling ideas for Christmas fiction posts. The problem with A Christmas Carol, in all its various iterations, is that the main character spends most of the the story unhappy. What if you did the opposite? What if the main character started the story unhappy but then you pointed out all the things that went right and all the good things the character had done, perhaps not realizing it at the time.
If you did that, you’d have It’s A Wonderful Life.
Huh.
Wiki agrees.
“It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas supernatural drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet “The Greatest Gift” self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol.” Wiki: It’s a Wonderful Life, citing “AFI Catalog of Feature Films The First 100 Years 1893–1993”. AFI Catalog. American Film Institute. Retrieved September 5, 2020. Emphasis mine.
Ah well, I’m pleased with having come up with this insight, even if it turned out not to be terribly deep.
Onwards!
Katherine
Virtual Brush Box 
I never thought of it that way.
And then there’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” which my partner’s family watches faithfully every Christmastide.
Jane
I hadn’t thought of this movie that way before — but I’ve never really watched it either. I used to like “White Christmas” and “Holiday Inn” because of the music and dancing. Now my favorites are the one with Chevy Chase, and two that take place during the holidays, but aren’t exactly Christmas movies — “Trading Places” and “Bridget Jones.” MM
We didn’t get a wide selection of holiday movies this year. We dont have streaming. Cable in the age of streaming is similar to broadcast in the age of cable. Plus ça change.