Directed by Les Mayfield and starring Richard Attenborough, Mara Wilson, and Elizabeth Perkins, Miracle on 31 Street (1994) tells the tale of a doubter, a dreamer, and a man many believe to be mad for his self-perception, his complete certainty that he was Santa Claus. This film also follows a disillusioned mother, scared of being hurt and scared of anyone hurting her young daughter, who is far more whimsical and believing than her mother. 

Dorey Walker is a single mother who raised her daughter with a complete sense of reality, which includes Santa Claus. The PR executive of a large department store, Coles (based on Macy’s), Dorey, stumbles across Kris Kringle, who looks very stereotypically like Santa Claus, and thus she begs him to replace the drunk Santa Claus she hired for the Christmas parade. Afterwards, he is again hired to ‘play’ Santa Claus/Kris Kringle, prioritizing the joy of the children over the department store’s monetary motivations, and he unintentionally stumbles upon an important business lesson: building trust and customer loyalty comes from prioritizing the customers over the store. The success that engulfs the store due to Kris Kringle makes the department store competitors have it out for him to prove he is not Santa Claus.

This is a wonderfully wholesome family Christmas movie. It shows the beautiful transformation from cynicism to idealism, realizing that sometimes, childhood pleasures of hope don’t have to disappear with age and can be reborn once more. This is a film I love to watch during the Christmas season, and I highly recommend it.