Christmas Every Day is a 1996

1996 in film

Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 television movie

Television movie

A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...

, directed by Larry Peerce

Larry Peerce

Larry Peerce is an American film and TV director whose work includes the theatrical feature Goodbye, Columbus, the early rock and roll concert film The Big T.N.T. Show, and One Potato, Two Potato , the first U.S...

, starring Erik von Detten

Erik von Detten

Erik Thomas von Detten is an American actor. He is known for his roles in Escape to Witch Mountain, Toy Story, Brink!, The Princess Diaries, and So Weird.-Personal life:Von Detten was born in San Diego, California...

, and originally broadcast on The Family Channel

ABC Family

ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

 during their first 25 Days of Christmas programming block. Based on William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...

's short story, "Christmas Every Day".

Plot

The film stars Erik von Detten

Erik von Detten

Erik Thomas von Detten is an American actor. He is known for his roles in Escape to Witch Mountain, Toy Story, Brink!, The Princess Diaries, and So Weird.-Personal life:Von Detten was born in San Diego, California...

 as Billy Jackson, a selfish teenager forced to relive the same Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 every day. At night on Christmas Day, Billy's sister wishes that it was Christmas every day. And thereafter he has to keep repeating Christmas Day until he realizes the true meaning of the holiday season.

The movie also stars Robert Hays

Robert Hays

Robert Hays is an American actor and is arguably most well known for his role in the movie Airplane!-Life and career:...

 and Bess Armstrong

Bess Armstrong

Elizabeth Key "Bess" Armstrong is an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Louise Allen , who taught at Bryn Mawr, and Alexander Armstrong, an English teacher at the Gilman School...

 as Billy's parents.

Billy finds the entire experience to be really a nightmare. "My life is on rewind," he moans. Each December 25 he must face the school bully, get involved in his grocer father's dispute with his fat-cat uncle who wants to build a mega store and ruin the local merchants. Then there's Billy's Christmas pageant prank that goes horribly awry, and the destitute old lady who needs the bag of food he forgets to bring her.

Remake

The movie was remade into a TV movie in 2006 titled Christmas Do-Over

Christmas Do-Over

Christmas Do-Over is a TV movie starring Jay Mohr and Daphne Zuniga. It premiered on ABC Family in 2006 on their 25 Days of Christmas programming block. It is a remake of Christmas Every Day, but with an adult as the protagonist.-Plot:...

. It aired on ABC Family

ABC Family

ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

.

Trivia

• A brief cameo is made by then-Virginia
  Virginia
  The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
  
   governor (and former Senator) George Allen.
• The movie last aired on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas in 2008.

See also

• Time loop
  Time loop
  A time loop or temporal loop is a common plot device in science fiction in which time runs normally for a set period but then skips back like a broken record. When the time loop "resets", the memories of most characters are reset...
  
  , about the general phenomenon (also lists many other examples of it in fiction)
• Elmo Saves Christmas
  Elmo Saves Christmas
  Elmo Saves Christmas is a children's home video that was released in 1996. In the story, Elmo learns that Christmas cannot occur every day. The Christmas special is the basis idea from the Christmas short story, 'Christmas Every Day' by William Dean Howells,...
  
  - Children's film (coincidentally released in the same year) exploring a common childhood wish of wanting Christmas every day
• Groundhog Day
  Groundhog Day (film)
  Groundhog Day is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based on a story by Rubin....
  
  - Bill Murray
  Bill Murray
  William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
  
   must relive Groundhog Day
  Groundhog Day
  Groundhog Day is a holiday celebrated on February 2 in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter-like weather will soon end...
  
  over and over.