Having spent the last two months studying Christmas movies, I’ve been imparted with a renewed understanding of one of the more understudied aspects of film criticism.
I’m currently writing a 10-part series for Geeks Under Grace exploring what I call the “True Meaning of Christmas movies.” It’s a remarkably difficult thing to DEFINE the concept of yuletide films. There is no shared definition (ergo the “Die Hard” debates), but we do observably react to Christmas movies in unusual ways, as almost more of a liturgical tradition than a normal film.
However, an under-appreciated reality of Christmas movies is something I only observed this past month after cramming dozens of Christmas movies into every spare hour of the day—a surprising number take place in Chicago.
“Home Alone” is set in a fictionalized version of Winnetka, Illinois. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” takes place in an unnamed suburb outside of Chicago. “The Santa Clause” is set in Lakeside, Illinois. “Christmas With the Kranks” happens in Riverside, Illinois. “Fred Claus,” “The Christmas Chronicles,” “Office Christmas Party,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “A Bad Moms Christmas,” and the early scenes of “A Christmas Story Christmas” take place in downtown Chicago.
“The Polar Express” is initially set in Grand Rapids, Michigan (based on the inclusion of several historic local buildings familiar to the original book’s author). Still, its North Pole sequences are modeled after the Pullman Factory in Chicago.
Many additional films also connect to the greater Midwest. “A Christmas Story” takes place in Northwestern Indiana. “Jingle All The Way” is set in Minneapolis. The Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray classic “Remember The Night” starts in New York City and moves to Indiana for the holidays.
There are a handful of Christmas movies set in New York (“Elf,” “Home Alone 2”), Connecticut (“Christmas In Connecticut,” “Holiday Inn”), London (“Love Actually,” “A Christmas Carol”), Philadelphia (“Trading Places”), Orlando (“Ernest Saves Christmas”), San Francisco (“Four Christmases”), Boston (“The Holdovers”) and Los Angeles (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” “Mixed Nuts”).
However, the vast majority of named cities are set in the midwest with many unnamed cities in Christmas movies seemingly modeled on Chicago’s suburbia.
Chicago is a favorite destination for holiday filmmakers, but there’s no singular reason for this decision. These films were shot over four decades by different filmmakers. John Hughes’s influence certainly hangs over several, but many are completely unrelated.
Filmmakers simply came to the same conclusion and shot their films in the same city. And since the greater Chicago area is my childhood stomping grounds, I would wager there are three reasons why.
Political
It is hard to overstate Major Richard J. Daley’s influence on the Windy City. Between 1955 and 1976, he continuously held his office until his dying day and eventually passed it on to his son, Richard M. Daley.
He and his family have left an indelible mark on the city and its politics. For whatever reason though, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was generally disdainful of filmmaking taking place within the city.
As film critic Roger Ebert suggests, the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic Convention had left a black eye on city hall and resulted in Daley choosing to crack down on media and filmmaking in the city unless it passed through aggressive approval processes. There are also scurrilous rumors that Daley had been offended by several of the films that had been shot in the city in the 1950s and curbed all film production.
When he died in 1976, the floodgates opened and film production began in earnest in the city including “The Blues Brothers” and “Vacation.” With local Chicagoans like Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Hughes bringing their film projects close to home, it slowly transformed the midwestern industrial hub into a hub of comedy and cinema.
And with Christmas movies ramping up in popularity in this time, it became a popular city to shoot them in.
Economics
In old Hollywood, New York City was the hometown of most Christmas movies. Think major films like “Miracle on 34th Street,” “It Happened on 5th Avenue,” “Holiday Inn” and “Remember the Night.” They drew on its omnipresence to turn it into America’s center of capital and culture during the holidays.
Macy’s frequently represented American commerce.
However, as Los Angeles and New York have become less favorable to filmmaking, cities like Chicago and Atlanta have picked up major productions through savviness.
Starting in 2004, Illinois launched its first tax incentive for filmmaking projects taking place in the city and using local workers. Large projects would be given a tax credit plus extra for pulling labor from high-unemployment areas.
In recent years, the tax credit has been expanded and extended to smaller film productions.
Having spent a few years orbiting the Chicago filmmaking ecosystem as a boom operator and audio intern, I can affirm that a big part of Chicago’s appeal as a filmmaking hub is its vibrancy. Cinespace is one of the largest soundstages in the country, and the state’s efforts to push tax credits for film production have made it a sizable hub for blockbuster films like “The Dark Knight,” “Man Of Steel,” “Divergent” and “Transformers.” It’s no surprise that a few of those recent films are Christmas films like Netflix’s “The Christmas Chronicles.”
Aesthetic
Christmas imagery is almost always rural and rustic. There are certainly romantic depictions of Christmas in the city, with busy storefronts and intricate light displays, but the holiday has always appealed first and foremost to countryside imagery.
Snowy fields, sleds and farmhouses with glowing fireplaces speak to the inner Thomas Kincaid fan who quietly enjoys the sentimentalism of light and home. It all points to the idea of coming home for Christmas, taking a long pilgrimage to where your roots lay and getting back in touch with loved ones.
Lest we forget, the original lyrics to Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” include the singer lamenting his sunny Christmas in Beverly Hills and “longing to be up North.”
While Chicago has long been seen as an industrial port city, it is very much the cultural capital city of the Midwest and holds an outsized influence over the lives of nearly a dozen states around it. It is a surprisingly vibrant city filled with color and tradition.
Chicago’s climate is also uniquely conducive to the holiday, with snow frequently beginning to pour in large quantities by mid-December and often holding through Christmas. The midwest is also one of the few regions of the country where this is consistently possible, outside of the prairie states and New England, the former of which are rarely depicted in Christmas media.
The city’s combination of rustic suburbia, ready access to rural America (there’s corn EVERYWHERE), Michigan Avenue-style high-end consumerism and ideal weather make it emblematic of all the imagery of Christmas in one ideal place.
It can feel like a suburban steel town in “A Christmas Story” as equally as a quiet middle-class suburb in “Christmas Vacation.”
It’s also a hub for business and holiday spending.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
As films like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and “The Untouchables” show, Chicago is one of the most aesthetically beautiful and culturally vibrant places to shoot a movie. As someone who has spent too many days navigating the city’s frozen streets, it has a deep beauty even amid the bleak midwinter.
It’s a hearty city that survives despite its very public negative reputation.
While I don’t think every filmmaker chooses to film here for the same reason, I think they, too, see their roots in the city and embrace that. The Second City players, whose comedy would define the 1980s, came back to Chicago and filmed many of their best films here.
And as someone who has had to move for work, returning to it is a deeply held Christmas tradition that makes it feel like home.
I get why Chicago reminds some of our best filmmakers of Christmas.
If this short piece interests you, please go check out my Christmas movies series for Geeks Under Grace, which will be running weekly through December 27. My ongoing book-length analysis of Christmas movies is comprehensive and digs into some of the most fun questions of the holiday season, like whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie!
