Candace Cameron Bure Won’t Say This in Her Christmas Movies
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actress Candace Cameron Bure and filmmaker Andy Erwin discussed the inside story behind Christmas movies and revealed the message they hope to convey when they tackle these movies.
“As I’ve shifted my career [I have] been able to insert more of a faith-focus narrative in some of the movies. I always want to nod to what the real reason for the season is as a person of faith,” Bure explained. “I think that has been very important to me, and it doesn’t have to be over the top, but let’s at least, while we’re looking for love on the farm…let’s recognize that we celebrate Christmas because Jesus came to the world and was the Savior of the world, you know, born a baby on Earth and lived the perfect life and willingly sacrificed himself so that we can all be reconciled to God. Now I might not say all of that in the movie, but I want to just recognize what Christmas is all about in that sense.”
In a post for Great American Family, the actress said, “When I think about ‘Christmas as it’s meant to be,’ it’s all about slowing down and remembering the true reason for the season. In the rush of gift buying and part planning, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s most important — hope, love and faith.”
Even when she’s not explicitly sharing the Gospel message in a movie, Bure’s faith impacts what she is and is not willing to do. This has caused her to confront certain romantic movie clichés to align their message with the Bible.
“There’s things in the movies that I have said before that I never really liked saying before. There’s some cliché lines, and pretty early after saying them a couple of times, I was like, ‘Here’s some things I’m not going to say anymore in my Christmas movies,’” Bure said.
“One of them that always been a really big theme in Christmas movies is follow your heart…but the Bible says that the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things, that’s Jeremiah 17:9, so we’re actually not to follow our heart but to follow the wisdom that God gives us,” Bure continued. “So there’s things like that where I will look at the Christmas movies and say, ‘Hey, what’s a different type of line I can say that would either, you know, point to what we should be looking at: God.’ And maybe it’s a direct way of saying it or maybe it’s just in the different types of conversation, but I don’t want to lead someone in something that I know is deceitful; that is not biblically sound.”
Bure and Erwin both get fired up about Christmas movies because even when they are not Christian, they almost always point to Christian themes. ELF, for example, points to the power of belief, even though in the movie it is belief in Santa and the Christmas spirit.
“The whole metaphor of it is that [Buddy] is going back to New York City to find his dad is on the naughty list and he’s trying to really save his dad to believe again,” Erwin said. “Now, the spirit of Christmas is kind of the representation of what the world defines it to be, but we look at it as it’s the meaning of Christmas and it’s the truth that we believe that it is everything that points to what the celebration is about as a person, and it’s not Santa Claus, it’s Jesus. And so, it’s just a representation that really connects on a soul level of the joy that we feel at Christmas is rooted in something we really believe in.”
“There’s just a gift there to communicate in this movie,” he added. “[ELF] really boils down to Buddy’s faith, you know, that joy comes out of his faith. That he really believes what he’s been taught growing up about the power of Christmas and that infects a very jaded town of New York City.”
Bure has two Great American Family Christmas movies coming this year — A CHRISTMAS LESS TRAVELED (Nov. 16) and HOME SWEET CHRISTMAS (Dec. 1).
“The Dine and Dash Diner has an ever-growing mountain of unpaid bills. This forces its owner, Desi, to sell her beloved, mint condition, cherry red 1964 Ford F-100, a gift from her deceased father,” a synopsis of A CHRISTMAS LESS TRAVELED that Bure posted along with the trailer reads. “As she visits the vintage truck one last time, Desi discovers a recorded message from her dad on an old audio cassette tape. Her dad’s voice sends her out to retrace her family’s most memorable moments which reveal more about herself than she could have ever imagined.”
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