Christmas by medium

Christmas themes have long been an inspiration to artists and writers. A prominent aspect of Christian media, the topic first appeared in literature and in music. Filmmakers have picked up on this wealth of material, with both adaptations of Christmas novels, in the forms of Christmas films, Santa Claus films, and Christmas television specials.

It also includes animation, comics, and children's books, including A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and Frosty the Snowman.

Many Christmas stories have been adapted to movies and TV specials, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on TV. Since the popularization of home video in the 1980s, their many editions are sold and re-sold every year during the holiday shopping season. Notable examples are the many versions of the ballet The Nutcracker, the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, and the similarly themed versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts and learns the errors of his ways. By contrast, the hero of the former, George Bailey, is a businessman who sacrificed his dreams to help his community. On Christmas Eve, a guardian angel finds him in despair and prevents him from committing suicide, by supernaturally showing him how much he meant to the world around him.

A few films based on fictionalized versions of true stories have become Christmas specials themselves. The story behind the Christmas carol "Silent Night" and the story of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" are two examples.

Films revolving around the Nativity story of Christmas are regularly produced such as The Nativity Story (2006), The Star (2017), and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). Sometimes, family films and classics boasting special effects and/or uplifting messages, but having no real relation to Christmas, are telecast during the season as part of the holiday programming. The Wizard of Oz, for instance, was always telecast during the Christmas season between 1959 and 1962. The action film Die Hard is seen by some as a Christmas film, as it takes place on the holiday, and is often viewed during the season, although whether or not Die Hard should be considered a Christmas film has been debated due to its story not being about the holiday itself. Others in this category include Iron Man 3, Lethal Weapon, Batman Returns, Eyes Wide Shut, Female Trouble, Shazam! and Doctor Zhivago.

In the United Kingdom, during the 2000s ITV usually showed a James Bond and/or a Harry Potter film(s) during the Christmas Holidays whilst the BBC showed the Chronicles of Narnia and/or High School Musical films. And for many years Channel 5 have shown American/Canadian made-for-TV Christmas films during the weeks before Christmas.

In North America, the holiday movie season often includes release of studios' most prestigious pictures, in an effort both to capture holiday crowds and to position themselves for Oscar consideration. Next to summer, this is the second-most lucrative season for the industry. In fact, a few films each year open on the actual Christmas Day holiday. Christmas movies generally open no later than Thanksgiving, as their themes are not so popular once the season is over. Likewise, the home video release of these films is typically delayed until the beginning of the next year's Christmas season.

American Christmas-themed films are also broadcast on the Hallmark Channel and its companion channel Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, which during the holiday season generally feature new films along with reruns of favorites from prior years. Actresses Candace Cameron Bure, Lacey Chabert, and Danica McKellar, along with actor Niall Matter, are frequently featured in lead or major roles. The films themselves generally feature a similar theme of a person who has "lost the Christmas spirit" and through "Christmas magic" regains it (commonly by a romantic encounter; frequently one of the two in the romance is a single parent or has lost someone special around a prior Christmas season). Another theme plays on the "big city-small town" dynamic, whereby a lead character has either left a small hometown for the big city (and has had to return), or a big city person has to go to a small town, in either case deciding that the small town is where they should remain. A main character will also have a Christmas-sounding name (such as "Holly") and/or the small town will (such as "Christmas Valley").