Find some Christmas magic by watching a holiday movie

Christmas movies have often been characterized as simpleminded entertainment to appease the masses. I, myself, have come to know the significant bond a movie can create between the viewer and the story.

Every good holiday movie has a moral or theme. “The Wizard of Oz” was always broadcast around Christmas when I was young. “There’s no place like home” is the message in this film. You watch the movie again because you want it to take you back “home” to that time.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” teaches that every life is worthwhile and fulfills a purpose.

“The Polar Express” uses holiday magic to tell a story. This movie invites you back to your youth, when you were enraptured in anticipation on Christmas Eve. There was no doubt in your mind that magic was real.

Please don’t think you are too old to believe in Christmas magic. If you have been lucky enough to find someone who truly loves you and have spent Christmas with that person, you know one thing: True love has always been the real Christmas magic.

Hayward Simpson, Lake City, Fla.

Mrs. Claus is coming

There’s a growing push for greater representation of women throughout society. So why isn’t there a movement to give a larger role to Mrs. Santa Claus?

For decades, Christmas has been depicted as a male-centric holiday, dominated by a mangiver

and his man-elfs. Even Santa’s reindeer seem to all be male!

Is this the message we want to send children of the world — that it’s still one old white man who’s assessing everyone’s naughtiness?

There’s an alternative. See society’s gender roles skewered

in “Mrs. Santa Claus,” the 1996 movie with Angela Lansbury.

Describing herself as “invincible,” Mrs. Claus sings proudly that “the moment has come to beat my own drum because I want the world to know there’s a Mrs. Santa Claus!”

Maybe this year can be the

Christmas we tell all those male-centric grinches they’re the ones who’d better watch out. Because Mrs. Santa Claus is coming to town.

Destiny Land, Alameda

Seek out happiness

Regarding “Merry melancholy” (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, Dec 22): I hear you, Trista. Your generation is witnessing too much. You smartly moved to a source of strength: your parents and their home.

Let them rebuild your trust in the world and that there is a good place for you in it. And I want to share this: There are always silver linings. You just need to look for them.

I recently lost my husband who was a source of strength to me. I find him now in my life to make his strength now mine. I am trusting my own sources of fun and happiness. I am searching out others who I can find fun and humor. A quote I love: “Always find time for the things that make you feel happy to be alive.”

I believe in you can do this for yourself, Trista.

FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images 1939 The Tin Man, Dorothy and the Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz,” a movie that takes you home.