One Magic Christmas (1985)

The great Canadian film director Phillip Borsos made this film in small town Meadford, Ontario.

It’s produced by Disney, and they wanted it to look like any small town in America. But if you look at the mailboxes and the car license plates, you comfortably know where it is. The story is a timeless tale about getting someone into the holiday spirit, and helping to believe again as children do in the goodness and joy of the season. In this case it is an adult mom, Ginny (Mary Steenburgen), married to

Jack (Gary Basaraba), a good man. Borsos forces Ginny and the viewers into darkness before struggling to find light when Jack is killed while trying to stop a local bank robbery on Christmas Eve. The film features Harry Dean Stanton as a genuinely reimagined Christmas angel and the best Santa Claus ever created on screen (Jan Rubes). This is my favourite Christmas movie.