As I’ve gotten older, Christmas has become less about presents and more about family traditions. Most people have favorite
Christmas films like Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Christmas Story or It’s A Wonderful Life. It just doesn’t feel like the holidays until they’ve watched it.

My inspiration for holiday spirit is Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. I can’t remember a Christmas in recent years in which this movie hasn’t been part of my holiday ritual. Every year, the dulcet tones of the Christmas crooner, Bing Crosby, float out of the TV while my mother, grandmother and I make tissue paper snowflakes around the dining room table.

Crosby’s co-stars–Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen-are all greats of the 1950s era musical and help make White Christmas the classic that it is.

The driving force behind this movie is, of course, the musical numbers. Irving Berlin composed all 17 songs featured in the movie. My favorite is the modern dance number “Choreography.” In it, Kaye laments the death of the traditional dance number in favor of choreography while the modern dancers in identical plain dresses surround him.

White Christmas fills me up with nostalgia; nostalgia for a time when things were simpler, and Christmas was about “peace on earth, good will toward men,” not about how much we spend and the gifts we receive.

This sentiment is the heart of the movie.

Bob Wallace (Crosby), Phil Davis (Kaye) and the Haynes sisters (Clooney and Ellen) go to extraordinary lengths to help the failing business of a Vermont innkeeper. They selflessly donate their time, money and resources without any gain for themselves.

White Christmas ends as all musicals do, with a big flashy music number.

With a background of falling snow, the inside of the inn expands exponentially to contain the holiday merriment. Vermont ends up having a white Christmas after all, the boys get the girls and the inn is saved.

As in all musicals, there is a happy ending, and I sometimes find myself wishing that the real world worked this way too. Christmas is all about giving, but most of the time we are all worried about what we can get.

Why not try to make the gifts you give this year, or, at least, try to put a little more thought into buying a gift?

People will love that you took the effort, and you just might forget all about expecting the presents you might receive.

I hope you can find that special something that puts you in the holiday mood. Plus, from the looks of it, St. Louis might just have a white Christmas after all.