Nothing says Holidays to me more than sitting in front of the warming TV set, with toasted chestnuts on lap, wrapped in a blanket and watching a fantastic old movie. This year I’ve been lucky enough to catch three gems which I’d like to pass to you.

Oh, if you’re wondering, Xmas becomes a minimalist fashionista’s best friend when you steer away from the shopping and concentrate on good food, great company and some classic movies. Very little money is spent in the process and some great memories are made indeed.

WHITE CHRISTMAS by Michael Curtiz

Let’s start with the simplest choice. Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen are simply phenomenal as a quartet of artists who bring new life to a forlorn inn and its forgotten hero owner in Vermont. Vera-Ellen is the ultimate dream to watch, with her tiny waist and stylish panache — not to mention her dance moves which make her the most underrated fabulous dancer of the time. There is holiday joy, good spirit and great cinematography and the film simply puts the “Mas” in Christ-mas.

You can watch ‘White Christmas’ on YouTube or Google Play.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE by Henry Koster

The idea to cast Cary Grant as an angel, who comes to fix the marriage of bishop David Niven and his wife Loretta Young, is simply divine. This is probably by far my favorite Christmas movie because it addresses what I feel I need most in my own life — someone to make me see the good I have and forget the troubles I’ve seen. And Grant is certainly the ideal man for that! In later year’s I’ve watched reruns of TV’s ‘The Mentalist’ and see a lot of Simon Baker’s character in the figure of dashing, elegant and completely at easy being grand, Grant.

But ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ is warming and lovely on so many levels, not least of all its stunning black and white, and punctuated by great minor characters like Elsa Lancaster and Monty Woolley, who all conspire to bring a paranormal tale home, and make it absolutely possible. I’ve since noticed little acts of everyday angels among us and when a film manages to bleed its magic into my daily life, well that’s a miracle right there!

You can find ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ on Amazon Prime.

MY FAIR LADY by George Cukor

I’ll admit that this is the least conventional choice for a holiday movie and yet probably the most profound. We, as women, all dream of that Cinderella story but what Eliza Doolittle goes through to find her happy ending is deeply unsettling. Adjusting and reinventing herself to become a “proper lady” and then realizing that, in itself, brings nothing in return other than loneliness and alienation — not love and fortune as she’d been told — is a theme perhaps forgotten in this age of crass and vulgar reality TV women who shout and show it all without second thought. But inside all us women is still a sense of wanting to make a good partner, and finding someone who accepts us as we are. The final image of the film is utterly heartbreaking and in a good way. I can’t ever watch the film without sobbing at the end. Audrey Hepburn is magnificent, Rex Harrison is fascinating and the supporting cast is phenomenal. Oh and of course, Cecil Beaton did an incredible job of art production, costumes and sets being the stuff that a fashionista’s dreams are made of.

Watch ‘My Fair Lady’ on your local TV channel this holiday. It’s not available to stream anywhere at the moment.