4. Children Can Disappear All Night And No One Notices
Maybe less widespread than some of the entries on this list, but it still crops up with alarming regularity. Now, it’s no secret that many Christmas movies include fantastical elements (after all, it’s a fantastical season), but this particular notion is perhaps a little out there. Obviously, some parents are more observant than others, but children going missing for an entire night? Not likely to fly under many radars.
Think of movies such as The Christmas Chronicles, The Polar Express, and The Snowman – all of them are hinged upon the idea that children can just up stakes and embark on a midnight journey without warning. Of course, such movies sometimes explain how this is achieved without alerting a responsible adult (as opposed to an elf or a magically-animated snowman) but the simple fact is that those parents would notice. It’s not as though parents just tuck their children in and then don’t bother to check in on them (especially on Christmas Eve).
It’s a trope that exists because magical Christmas stories require a sense of festive adventure, and adventure isn’t easy to come by when you’re all tucked up in bed. However, it relies on the idea that parents are unobservant and (in some cases) negligent, and that’s certainly not always believable. It may facilitate some of the most memorable Christmas movies of all time, but it’s still a pretty dumb trope.