Christmas Movie Dilemma

I found myself cringing, yet a little excited, when the Navy Exchange put up a section of Christmas movies in mid-October. The absurdity of Christmas stuff in October aside, it did get me thinking: which one should I pick up for the holidays? Desperately trying not to go overboard, I -figured a one-movie limit would be a good idea.

Obviously, you can't go wrong with A Christmas Carol. Still, with that self-induced one purchase limit, I was debating downloading the text for the original story (it's copyright expired, it's free to download from places like projectguttenberg.com) and picking up an unrelated DVD. I figured I could enjoy A Christmas Carol and pick up another holiday flick, sort of the best of both worlds.
I was still on the fence, because while I'll still read it, I do like to watch it. I'm sure the Armed Forces Network will play it, probably multiple times, but with my crazy sixteen hour work days the chances of me being home and awake for it are slim.

Then the NEX made it easy to have my cake and eat it too: discounted from $15 to $5, they had a DVD Special Edition of the Alastair Sim version. I assumed for the price it was a bare-bones, cheap production, but it's actually a two-disc feature-laden release that includes a remastered black and white version and the color version amongst bios, commentary, trailers, and so forth. It even has the 1935 Seymour Hicks version ("Scrooge").

While I'm not sure if it needed to be remastered (there's some charm in grainy, old black and white productions), for the price it took care of my St. Nick movie dilemma - I think I can justify a second Christmasy video since I only spent five tax free dollars. The hard part now is holding off on watching it, because it's sitting on my shelf begging to take a ride in my DVD player.