Christmas Movie Channels

December is the one month where a channel beats a menu by a mile, and this is the bundle built for it.

Seven channels, split by who is in the room and how sentimental you are willing to get. HOLIDAZE is the general one, the whole holiday shelf running all day. NOSTALGEX CHRISTMAS leans on the older stuff, the films that look like the ones that were on when you were a kid. SANTA'S LIST is the family safe channel. NAUGHTY LIST is the other end: the rude ones, the ones with a body count, the annual argument about whether that counts as a Christmas movie. CHRISTMAS SPECIALS is the half hour stuff, the TV episodes and animated specials. KIDS CHRISTMAS TV is the one to leave on for the small people.

Here is the actual use case, and it is the strongest one in the whole app. It is the second Saturday in December, there are people in the house, a tree is half decorated, and nobody wants to pick a movie. You put HOLIDAZE on in the morning and the TV just runs all day. People wander through, something is always halfway through, nobody scrolls a grid of posters while four people say "I don't mind, you pick". That is what a holiday channel was for.

All of it comes from your own server. Nostalgex reads the Plex or Jellyfin library you already have, sorts the holiday titles into these seven channels, builds a real schedule and starts playing mid film. No titles ship with the app. If you own six holiday movies you will see one channel, not seven, because a channel waits until there is enough on your shelf to fill it.

Worth doing in late November: add the two or three you always rent, and let the channels pick them up before the house fills with people.

Free, open source under the MIT license, Apple TV on tvOS 18 or later, Plex or Jellyfin.