Published Dec 24, 2024
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One of my favorite parts of the yuletide season is enjoying a cozy night in, watching Christmas movies. And we cat owners are sure to find ourselves snuggling with at least one festive feline while watching these sweet flicks on TV!
While cats make a cameo appearance in several favorite Christmas movies – including the poor, unfortunate cat in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – several made-for-TV or direct-to-DVD holiday movies center their plots on cats. We love these five films starring felines. Cuddle up with your cat and enjoy!
1. Santa Claws
Cinemacats.com
This 2014 family movie makes for a delightful December watch! It starts with a long-ago Christmas, where two gray cats – Baxter, and the younger Rigby – spy on Santa Claus from under the living room couch. Baxter warns an eager Rigby not to go introduce himself to Santa, because he is allergic to cats! But Rigby being a cat, he comes out of hiding anyway and jumps on Santa, who starts sneezing and passes out. Chaos ensues, and a young girl’s gift – a record – is broken.
Santa Claws jumps ahead 30 years, and that girl – Julia, played by Nicola Lambo – now is a bitter single mom who has a grinchy attitude about Christmas. Her orange tabby cat, Maisy, recently had three adorable kittens. Though Julia’s son – Tommy, played by Ezra James Colbert – wants to keep the babies, Julia says they have to go.
Though Julia’s household doesn’t celebrate Christmas much or believe in Santa, Tommy puts the three cute babies – Patches, Mittens, and Hairball – in a decorated box on Christmas Eve. Tommy places the box in the living room with a note to Santa that Mom won’t let him keep “kittins” so please take care of them.
Well, inevitably, Santa ends up encountering these kittens. He starts sneezing again and, in the style of Tim Allen’s character in The Santa Clause, Santa falls off the roof. The talking reindeer tell the kittens that they’re now in the hot seat on the sleigh. It’s up to these precocious baby kitties, animated by voiceovers, to fly Santa’s sleigh and deliver gifts to all the world’s children in one night! What could possibly go wrong?
Spoiler alert: The clever, curious kittens do manage to pull off their sudden “Santa Claws” role, with adorable kitten antics, feline ingenuity, humor, and sweetness. One hilarious moment happens when the sleigh lands on a sandy beach, and the kittens think they’ve landed in a giant litter box.
Of course, there can only be a happy ending in a Christmas movie. So snuggle up with your cats, turn on the tree lights, pour some hot chocolate, and watch this gem.
2. Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever
imdb.com
If you like the snark of Grumpy Cat, you will love this 2014 Lifetime movie, even if the plot doesn’t engage you. The late, great Tardar Sauce – the real-life cat who became a social media sensation as a Grumpy Cat meme in 2012 – stars as the titular character, voiced by Aubrey Plaza. She really captures the out-loud thoughts we imagine our sarcastic sourpuss would have. Case in point: Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever begins with a scene at a decorated shopping mall, with carol “Deck the Halls” playing. “Deck the halls? Deck my face!” Grumpy Cat says.
“Grumpy,” as she is called in the movie, lives in a mall pet store. In her true antisocial form, Grumpy finds the other animals at the store very annoying and stupid. When the store owner is warned about overdue rent, he proposes using Grumpy as an internet meme and making money from merchandise sales.
Meanwhile, a lonely 12-year-old girl named Chrystal, who is getting bullied by mean girls, tells the mall Santa Claus that she wishes for a friend she can depend on and who will listen to her. Then, Chrystal walks into the pet store and finds that she alone can hear the thoughts of Grumpy. Chrystal was expecting a human friend, but she found her new bestie in a cat.
The rest of the movie, in a nutshell: Robbers break into the mall with the guidance of a dirty security guard, and Grumpy and Chrystal outsmart the crooks. Grumpy has a sentimental moment for Christmas, and she has found her home. And the mean girls get coal in their stockings. All is well with Grumpy Cat, who has had her worst Christmas ever. (Or was it actually the best?)
May the grouchy spirit of Tardar Sauce live on.
3. The Nine Lives of Christmas
tvinsider.com
This 2014 TV movie has all the elements of a clean, G-rated Hallmark romance: a meet-cute between two people who are either in an unhappy relationship or single, a sweet buildup of get-to-know-yous, and a guaranteed happy ending. But The Nine Lives of Christmas adds a unique element we all love: Cats play a major role in the cast!
Firefighter Zachary (Brandon Routh), who is proudly commitment phobic, is dating a coldhearted girlfriend whose father owns a pet supply store, but she doesn’t like animals. When a homeless orange tabby named Ambrose, whose owner has passed away, latches on to Zachary, his girlfriend is not happy about it.
“You didn’t tell me you got a cat!” she says.
“Well, he kind of got me,” Zachary replies sheepishly.
Of course, by the end of the movie, Ambrose finds his happily ever after with his chosen human dad, after wearing out Zachary’s “I need to find him a home” pledges. Meanwhile, Zachary meets Marilee (Kimberley Sustad), a jaded and workaholic student in veterinary school. She has snuck a stray cat into her house and gets evicted by her landlord, who also detests pets.
Guess who Marilee moves in with? Guess who falls in love? Guess which felines find their homes?
And, the story continues with a sequel seven years later.
4. The Nine Kittens of Christmas
imdb.com
Spoiler alert: This movie has a happy ending and is so stinking cute. How could it not be when it’s a Hallmark Christmas movie with not nine tiny reindeer, but nine tiny kittens?
Zachary and Marilee are back in this 2021 sequel to The Nine Lives of Christmas. Zachary is still at the fire station, and Marilee is now a practicing vet who owns a veterinary clinic in a city far away from home. They have since broken up. Queenie has passed away, and now, Marilee has Duchess, along with an unsatisfying relationship with a new boyfriend. You can see where this is going – especially when someone left a box of kittens at Zachary’s fire station!
Zachary seeks out Marilee’s help when she is home for the holidays, and the vet takes them into her home. Her niece names the kittens after Santa’s reindeer – last but not least Rudolph, who is an adorable tuxedo.
Long story short: All the kittens find happy homes, Marilee moves home, and Zachary realizes he screwed up and reunites with his true love. Sweet.
5. A Meowy Christmas
imdb.com
This silly movie from 2017 tips its hat to several classic movies, including Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Toy Story, Home Alone, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The story goes like this: Wally (Steve Rudzinski), probably the world’s most incompetent police detective, has a cat named Mr. Whiskers (Amie Wrenn) and a rat named Chuck (Aaron Fletchersmith). Just like on Toy Story, Wally is oblivious that his anthropomorphic pets start talking to each other in English after he leaves the house. He also doesn’t seem to know that “Mr.” Whiskers is a female.
Long story short, Wally fails to recognize the obvious burglars in his neighborhood, and they break into his house. But Miss Whiskers takes after Kevin McAllister in Home Alone, and the clever cat – a conspiracy theorist who thinks the burglars are alien lizard people – fills the Christmas-decorated house with booby traps that nail the criminals. She is a better cop than her human is!
This goofy movie includes Christmas carols with cute meowing cat sound effects, and talking, snarky cats are always delightful – especially next to dimwitted human characters.
In 2020 came the sequel A Meowy Christmas Vacation with several characters reprising their roles. The plot is completely nonsensical and difficult to follow, but it’s another dose of talking animals, so that makes this 50 minutes worth watching.
