Despite our differences in social upbringing, nationality, language, religion, etc... We all agree in 1 thing, that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie, right?
Yippee Kay Yay... (The only movie that doesn't depresses me in Xmas)
No, we agree that “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” is a fun proposition to entertain, either because it’s edgy and freaks the mundanes with its audacious disregard for cherished norms, or (more recently) because it’s a fun meme, with own line of commercially available ugly Christmas sweaters and knowingly ironic greeting cards. Though the meme eventually will become so overexposed that quoting from Die Hard on Christmas will become as basic and mid as dressing up in a Santa costume and drunkenly making an arse of yourself with several hundred similarly attired dudes.
That’s a glib technicality, but not sufficient to make it a “Christmas movie” in the usual sense. The Christmas party is a plot device, and could have been replaced with a different one without significantly altering the plot of the film.
Everyone keeps saying that, but it could be a random party. It's not particularly important that the party is Christmas, the company could be having an Easter celebration or even just a random party for a specific milestone for the company. As far as I remember, there's nothing particular about being Christmas other than the decorations.
Home alone has to be set during Christmas, these are crucial parts of the plot:
The entire block travels at the same time
Houses have decorations, which are used as traps
Houses have lights that turn on at a specific time
It has to be set during winter
So if you could have a different holiday during winter where lots of people decorate their houses to turn on lights at a specific time, then it wouldn't necessarily be a Christmas movie. Otherwise you need to change crucial points of the plot.
Other examples are Jingle all the way or Nightmare before Christmas you can't change the Christmas theme in those movies. I mean, you can but you'll end up with a very different movie. Whereas if you change Christmas on Die Hard for any other party event only the decoration changes, the plot of the movie would be essentially the same.
"If Elf was about a human raised by bunnies and then Buddy helped a family learn the true meaning of Easter it would be an Easter movie! So Elf isn't a Christmas movie."
That's what this argument sounds like to me. You're hyper focusing on one tiny element of the story. Yes, there are not many Christmas parts, but taken together they are sufficient to make a Christmas movie. If the party wasn't Christmas themed you'd still have Christmas themed misic and a movie about a man trying to fix his family (super common Christmas trope).
It's a movie about a man attending a Christmas party in order to patch things up with his wife and spend the holidays among his family. But the only way to do that, and to defeat the greedy villain, is to let go of their pride. And also there's guns and stuff.
It's a Christmas movie in the same way Addams family is a wholesome family. They obviously are, and you only disagree if you're unable to look past the surface.
While I agree that people shouting about it being a Christmas movie is annoying, it definitely is a Christmas movie. It has all the trappings of a Christmas movie and Christmas music is in the score.