As the holiday season approaches in the upcoming weeks it’s nice to put on a movie around the campfire with the people you care for the most.

With a side of hot chocolate warming your body and a comforter blanket that allows little to no winter air to affect you.

I put on the movie of my choice, which is ‘Christmas with the Kranks,’ as a fun family movie to turn off your brain and enjoy endlessly.

A movie which displays a couple that decided to skip Christmas for one year for their own benefit rather than celebrate the Christmas season with their neighbors, who value the holiday to an excessive amount. 

Almost too excessive, as the movie develops strangely. Looking at it from an outside perspective, the film ‘Christmas with the Kranks’ is a Communist propaganda movie that increases the idea of the fall of American culture and the idolization of a personage.

The movie is structured in a weird way that is off-putting, which I noticed the second time I watched it. It takes simple jokes and film structures to convey the idea of a higher authority and population control. Nevertheless, I’m weird, and let’s dive into this rabbit hole.

The movie starts off with our main characters, Nora and Luther Krank, at the airport letting their daughter go off into the world for a year as she joins the Peace Corps.

Both Kranks celebrated Christmas without her. As a Youtuber Wendigoon said, this “displays a person leaving a group to pursue their own goals rather than staying with the community.”

The idea of Christmas is put in a light as propaganda to fuel your own beliefs rather than go off into the world. In the first instance, Luther Krank headed to the grocery store as a Santa Claus promoting Santa Claus ornaments and other essentials.

The theme and concept of Christmas are seen everywhere throughout the movie to the point where everyone in the small town relates Christmas to a higher meaning rather than a traditional holiday.

Wendigoon analyzed the interaction. “The action of free will doesn’t exist, as the community is obsessed with Christmas but they want everyone else to be obsessed with Christmas as they don’t accept if someone else is not,” Wendigoon said.

It is noted that Luther Krank’s first mistake is when he begins to think of himself as an individual rather than part of the communal group. Luther began planning a vacation for himself and his wife to be separate from the holidays and focus on relaxing. Following that, people at his own workplace began judging him for these actions. 

Wendigoon examines the exchange. “They do not know his intentions yet they’re already looking down on him for falling out of the general idea on how to behave,” she said.

Later on in the movie, there is a scene with Nora Krank at a diner with her friends. She was prompted by a man on Nora’s involvement with Christmas. Nora exclaims that she is not going to make any Christmas cards this year and is met with immediate opposition and scrutiny.

Wendigoon ends it off with this idea: “Our characters simply wanted to be left alone, however, it would be seen as unacceptable to this story and any thought of one’s self is considered selfish no matter the circumstances.”

To be able not to think and believe in your own way without a higher communal society forcing you to center your life revolving around the idea of Christmas is exactly what the intention of the Soviet Union in days past

Makes you wonder what other movies develop such ideas if we take a look at it through a magnifying glass.