3. Santa Doesn’t Have Any Backup Plans
Speaking of unlikely plot devices that conveniently facilitate magical Christmas adventures… Think of any Christmas movie that features Santa Claus, and odds are something goes wrong with his deliveries. Whether that mishap is a sleigh crash, runaway reindeer, or a lack of Christmas cheer, one thing is painfully clear: Santa doesn’t bother with proper backup plans.
Elf, The Christmas Chronicles, Fred Claus, Santa Who? – just a few titles where Santa’s plans go awry. On each occasion, some catastrophe occurs which threatens Christmas itself, and while those are excellent stakes for a Christmas movie, it’s a pretty stupid idea. After all, Santa is a magical being, and he’s all too often undone by things as trivial as; a bad back, a North Pole audit, and an argument with this brother (and that’s just in Fred Claus, where he’s part of one of the most festive dysfunctional families ever).
It’s unclear as to why a man upon whom the hopes of billions of children rest wouldn’t think to have a backup sleigh or a stand-in ready to go at a moment’s notice, but it’s a staple of family Christmas movies. Though it may seem logical that with Christmas falling on one man’s shoulders he might occasionally hit a snag or two, it really doesn’t seem right that he’d be so unprepared. He spends all year preparing to make sure one night goes to plan, so why wouldn’t he be ready for something to go wrong? It makes him look like an amateur, making it a very dumb Christmas movie trope.