Tonight, my wife Kim and I will be watching the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol, with Alistair Sim as Scrooge, and in our minds, the definitive production of the Christmas classic. We watch it every Christmas. However, every Christmas I also watch another production I consider a classic too, the 1987 adaptation of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales or listen to Thomas himself reading it.

I shared both with my sister and a friend via text. My friend sent me this version by Richard Burton:

My friend gave this analysis, which I thought was right on and the reason I like the Elliot version the best:

Elliot gives a gentler, friendlier performance, and of course that’s partly because it’s a video production. The others are reading. There’s a serious authority to Thomas and a kind of repressed ferocity (as there often is) with Burton.

As a result of our conversation, for some reason, I was reminded of another production from 1987, The Dead, an adaptation of James Joyce’s short story of the same name in the collection Dubliners. It is one of my favorite movies, especially for the ending monologue (um, trigger warning, not a merry ending):

I found the entire movie on the Howdy channel on Roku. It also is free on Tubi. I’m watching it now.

Do you have Christmas TV or movie traditions? Share in the comments.