Talk: Notes on Christmas Movies: Office, Technology, and Magic
I recently had the opportunity to give a talk at Sweetspire Coffee & Bakery as part of the Lattes and Lectures series. I'd jumped at the chance to talk about something Christmas themed, as some of these ideas had been bouncing around my head really each year as I've watched some of my favorite films.
What I've posted below is a recording I did on my own a few weeks after the talk. I didn't want to worry about recording at the event itself, so yesterday I just read the script into PowerPoint and exported a video.
After the talk, I went through some old posts and realized that I've actually accumulated a large volume of Christmas material over the years! I'd gotten into a habit in the early 2010s of posting some Christmas-related thing each year. I can't say why, really, except that it felt like my own particular way of quietly observing the holiday season. So if you enjoy the below talk, you can also check out what I've written on Batman Returns, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and the Ghostbusters cartoon episode "Xmas Marks the Spot," or you can watch this montage of Christmas late at night in New York City, set to Craig Armstrong's piano theme from Love Actually.
Thanks again to Dr. Phoebe Wagner for organizing the series, to the fine folks at Sweetspire for hosting, and to everyone who attended.
Happy holidays to you and your loved ones, and best regards,
Rob
"Notes on Christmas Movies: Office, Technology, and Magic"
Original presentation: December 11, 2025 as part of the Lattes and Lectures series at Sweetspire Coffee & Bakery in Williamsport, PA
YouTube version recorded separately (December 22, 2025)
Bibliography
Anders, Sean, dir. Spirited. Apple TV+, 2022.
Coppola, Sofia, dir. A Very Murray Christmas. Netflix, 2015.
Curtis, Richard, dir. Love Actually. Universal Pictures, 2003.
Favreau, Jon, dir. Elf. New Line Cinema, 2003.
Folds, Ben. Sleigher. New West, 2024.
Katis, Clay, dir. The Christmas Chronicles. Netflix, 2018.
Lawrence, Marc, dir. Noelle. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2019.
McTiernan, John, dir. Die Hard. 20th Century Fox, 1988.
Mundy, John. “Christmas and the Movies: Frames of Mind.” In Christmas, Ideology and Popular Culture, edited by Sheila Whiteley. Edinburgh university press, 2008.
Raynis, Richard, dir. The Real Ghostbusters. Episode 13, “Xmas Marks the Spot,” written by J. Michael Straczynski. Aired December 13, 1986.
Scoll, Nathan. “Yes, Die Hard Is a Christmas Movie: A Semantic, Syntactic, Pragmatic Approach to Resolve the Debate Over Die Hard’s Genre Status.” Comparative American Studies An International Journal 20, nos. 3–4 (2023): 366–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/14775700.2023.2277073.
Szetela, Adam. “An (Anti)Neoliberal Christmas.” The Journal of Popular Culture 51, no. 2 (2018): 302–16.