Best Christmas film ever!

I am in the middle of watching the best Christmas film of all time. It's nothing highbrow, cultured or with amazing special effects or big stars. It's the Muppet Christmas Carol, which I love. Of course it stars the ever watchable Michael Caine, who has made films on many occasions (it would seem ) simply to pay the bills as well as making some corking entertainment. It must have taken some guts to make a film otherwise cast entirely from puppets including a genetically modified frog, an irritable diva pig and talking vegetables.

I've never really worked out why I love this movie so much. It may be because it is based on wonderful story telling which, because Dickens wrote his novels originally to be serialised in the popular press, is digestible and understandable (unlike some Shakespeare, which requires dedication). It may be because I loved the Muppets back in the 70s and 80s, with their cruel and well observed humour and predictable characters. Or it may be because it is simply colourful entertainment, gentle and without aggression, bad language, any attempts to moralise (although of course Christmas Carol is, essentially, a tale of morals) but with stacks of visual and verbal humour.

Jim Henson was a clever man. So was Frank Oz. They should by rights still be earning good money from this (or their estates should - at least one of them, sadly, is dead) and future generations should be made to watch it every year. Never mind Sound of Music and It's a Wonderful Life, for me they don't even come close.

The telly hasn't been too bad this year and there have been a few decent programmes on (Downton Abbey & Sherlock to name but two) but not many decent films. I think MCC was on Sky, but I missed it, so I've bought myself the DVD. And some of the characters remind me irresistably of people I know or have known - I know a big bumbling bear of a man that resembles Fozzie, and I know several old boys who have a resemblence to the two old men that heckle from the balcony, and there was once a boyfriend very similar to Animal. Over the years there have also been one or two people that remind me of Miss Piggy! But so far, no one that really resembles Kermit (I don't know many green people with webbed feet).

So I'm going to immerse myself in the film with total pleasure, because it may be some time before I watch it again. It's a winter thing really, not something that seems right in summer. There must be a summer film which fits the same bill, but I can't think of one at the moment. Can anyone else? Or do you have another winter film which is your all time favourite? Bet nothing tops this one!