I want to start by saying I didn’t even know this was a thing. I thought we as a culture had settled on Die Hard being a fun, if not an unorthodox, entry into the world of Christmas movies. In a genre dominated by Hallmark, cartoons, and stop-motion animation, Die Hard stands apart but is also enmeshed in the genre. Since its driving force is action, killing, and explosions do not really go together with the usual plots that dominate these stories, like opening a hot chocolate store, saving the Christmas tree lot, or breaking up with your financially stable partner to move back home and marry the hottie who owns a gingerbread house real estate firm.

So, when a few friends of mine, my wife included, said it is not a Christmas movie, I had to sit back and think for a moment. I could allow for them to have their opinions, and they still can after this write-up, but their sticking point is ‘Die Hard isn’t an action movie because it could take place at literally any other time of the year and still work.’ Christmas-movie demi-god Macaulay Culkin shares their argument as well.

And I almost joined their side of this argument, but then I remembered a single item in Die Hard that cements it as a bona fide Christmas movie. My argument is based on the fact that if you remove Christmas from a Christmas movie then it is no longer a Christmas movie. The removal of the holiday fundamentally changes the plot so much that the movie could no longer work. In order for a movie to work with the removal of the holiday, the movie cannot be reshot or rewritten for the changes. If you photoshop out every single Christmas decoration and the movie still plays then yes, the movie isn’t a Christmas movie.

SO, what’s the single item that keeps Die Hard in the realm of Christmas movies?

The scene where Holly is being held at gunpoint by Hans Gruber, and McClane shoots the last henchman and Gruber, saving Holly, doesn’t work without the tape holding the gun to his back. And sure, it could’ve been any tape, but it wasn’t; it was a very specific kind of tape. A tape that wouldn’t be just sitting in the middle of an office environment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the evidence that solidifies Die Hard as a Christmas movie:

That tape would only be used during Christmas time. No one would have packaging tape on the top floor of Nokatomi Plaza at any other time of the year EXCEPT if it was during a Christmas party. It would have been used to wrap presents. If it wasn’t Christmas time when Die Hard takes place, John McClane has no way of sneaking his gun with two bullets left in it into the room where his wife is being held hostage by two armed terrorists bank robbers. If Die Hard is moved to any other day, or hell, any other holiday of the year, then this last scene does not work.

You see, if we move Die Hard to New Year’s Eve, there are no presents to wrap with festive tape. You might have some tape to decorate the office, but it wouldn’t have been sticky enough to stick human skin that’s sweaty, dirty, and wet. Remember, at this point in the film, McClane has no shirt or shoes, and his pants are being held up by their made-in-the-USA construction alone. I’ve put parking stickers on cars with dirty windows. Trust me: if parking stickers won’t stick to a dirty window, the chances of decorative wall tape sticking to that guy, and bearing the load of a gun, are less than zero.

Let’s say it’s Easter, you’re using baskets, and no one does holiday parties for Easter. That would be just plain strange. Maybe you give cards to fellow Christians or maybe some Easter eggs, but that’s about it in an office environment. There wouldn’t be a cart full of packages and Easter themed tape just sitting in a random hallway.

Let’s look at the cart:

I bring up the mail cart because I want to fully prove my point here: if it isn’t during Christmas that Die Hard takes place, then Holly and John are both dead.

On the cart, you can clearly see multiple forms of packaging tape. The ‘Seasons Greetings’ one is loaded into the tape dispenser, revving to go. Now, it makes sense that a mailroom employee or an office worker would use the festive tape to make the packages they are sending just a bit more fun than the plain ol’ packaging tape. It’s the one that McClane picks because it is the easiest one to use, but that’s not why I am bringing up the cart at all.

I am bringing up the cart because if it were ANY other day or holiday, that packaging cart wouldn’t be sitting in the middle of the hall. It would’ve been in a closet or taken to the mailroom of the building. It is only sitting in this hallway, on this day, because there was a Christmas party in full swing! Lest we forget, Hans chose this day to do his heist because it was the day that he would have the most leverage. Hans knew he would either get the code for the vault from Takagi himself by using his entire staff as leverage, or he would drill out the vault and use the hostages as leverage against the Feds.

The man had schemes upon schemes.

If this were any other day or holiday, there would be no corporate party. You could argue that there could’ve been a New Years party, but then you would have no gift tape, and the movie doesn’t work if the cart holding the tape isn’t in the middle of the hallway. Unless you fundamentally rewrite Die Hard to remove Christmas, and change whole plot points, it doesn’t work for the ‘It could be any other day or holiday’ argument. If that is your argument, the movie should be easily swappable into that theory. You should be able to swap out the party for New Year's, Takagi’s birthday, the company’s 25th anniversary, a day ending in Y, and still have the same series of events without reshooting or rewriting the thing, but you can’t because of the tape.

I rest my case.

I know I haven’t talked to you all in a very, VERY long time, and for that I am sorry. My life has been busy and I have been trying to figure out how to balance making stories happen and work and the rest of my life. I am here to say that I will be publishing here again this coming year. So, know that this won’t be the last time I grace your inbox!

My plan is to create stories that either build into collections or are serialized segments into a single book. Additionally, I will share links to my podcast where I will be doing readings of short fiction pieces. I’ll tell you all about that when I get that all together!

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Thank you for your time and I’ll see you all next year.

-Nick Mazmanian