Thursday, December 25, 2025 |
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Merry Christmas! If you celebrate the holiday, I hope it's a festive one. If you're looking for something to watch today, we've collected and ranked the 50 best Christmas movies of all time. The list includes all the favorites, as well as a few surprises. Enjoy the holiday! And thanks for reading Esquire. —Michael Sebastian, editor in chief Plus: |
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Get into the holiday spirit with a list of films that will last you until next Christmas. |
When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching those claymation Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and A Year Without a Santa Claus even when it wasn't Christmas. My family never celebrated the holiday in the traditional sense, so it's a bit of a gift and a curse now that I know all those songs by heart. It was the whole family too. Ever since my father came home with a big stuffed animal of Bumble the Abominable Snowman for the house, Christmas has only really been about one thing: the movies. Now that I'm in my thirties, I've hit the point where I've seen quite a lot of Christmas films on my annual movie marathon. All that's left on my watchlist every year is whatever silly idea Netflix comes up with, like the absurdly titled Meet Me at the Christmas Train Parade. No, thank you. Instead, I've put together a list of the best Christmas movies of all time—just for you. |
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Everyone is always asking me, "Are you a dad yet?" And against all odds, I am not a dad. Not a man, don't have kids, my jokes are good. But I understand that I give dad vibes. I take style cues from those who do not fuss around. If I'm going, I'm going comfy. So of course, I'm all in on dad shoes. New Balance just does "dad" best. There's almost no competition. New Balances are built for purpose. For comfort. For a solid foundation on which all dads must stand. They are not built on hype, although they do acquire it. But on the whole, trends be damned. It's the very uncentering of style that makes them so damn cool. Asking us to pick our favorite sneaker is a bit like asking us to pick our favorite child. But let's be honest: We all have a favorite. |
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In truth, until recently I'd generally been okay with the death of everything. I'd blithely thrived in the country club of the death of everything. Then came the news. The depth of my denial was punctured by a single newspaper headline: SANTA FACES THE SACK. The ensuing story reported that Bloomingdale's in Manhattan had fired its store Santa and that Macy's was adopting an "interactive" North Pole. Other media picked up the news as a certain sign that Santa Claus was on the verge of extinction. Sure, you'd always be able to communicate with him somewhere at the cyber Pole as he clunked around his cyber workshop, but he would always be merely on display, like a museum piece. And usually, the only things in a museum are dead things. So whatever happened to Santa—the real Santa, the flesh-and blood Santa? |
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 Wednesday, December 24, 2025 |
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This is one of my favorite stories we published this year. It's about the men who play Santa Claus at Macy's. One of them is a legend among the Santas. This is a man who brought joy to thousands of people—until his life skidded out of control. His story is one of failure, grace, and, maybe, redemption. In other words, it's a Christmas story. I hope you enjoy it. And if you celebrate, I hope you have a merry Christmas. —Michael Sebastian, editor in chief Plus: |
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Bob Rutan is legendary among the tight-knit fraternity of Macy's Santa Clauses. Like many of these men, playing Santa changed Bob. Profoundly. |
For the first time in years, people were glad to see Billy. The kids' smiles weren't for him, exactly. They weren't for Billy, the person. They were for Santa. But somehow that didn't matter. The gig provided a variation on exposure therapy. Instead of making him face down a phobia in short bursts, it gave him those smiles, which accumulated—some gap-toothed, some nervous, every one of them happy—until eventually they made him happy too. He switched from vodka to light beer. He started booking two-hundred-dollar-an-hour corporate Santa gigs. He reconnected with his son and even employed him as an elf. The easy explanation would be that playing Santa Claus saved Billy and that the magic of Christmas had wrapped its warm glow around another lost soul. That's what Billy thought. That's what a lot of men who worked at Macy's thought when they, too, found happiness sitting in a gold-painted chair wearing a red costume. But there was something else at work on Thirty-fourth Street. Something more profound. A better story, actually. |
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When it comes to picking your very own signature scent, where do you start? How on earth do you go about identifying a blend of smells that perfectly captures the multifaceted nature of your identity or, hell, your very sense of self? You literally just have to follow your nose. Like, just find one that smells good to you. It's always nice to know what kind of scents you gravitate toward—woods, spices, freshness—to help cut through the options quickly. But even with that knowledge, the most important thing you need to do is put that nose to the bottle. |
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How often do the giants—the true giants, the All-Timers, the icons, the capi di tutti capi—get together? Not often. Not nearly often enough. In these days of manufactured stardom and celebrity du jour, hardly ever. That's why Esquire asked these two guys—these two monsters—to get together, mano a Santa, for a little Noel nosh and Yuletide yammer. The place: Bistro Latino, 1711 Broadway, New York, New York. Santa had the paella. Murray had a salad. Brandy was served. From the December 1998 issue of Esquire... Claus: Have you been a good boy? Murray: As good as I've ever been. |
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