No....
I ain't even setting up the question, i'm answering it straight up, Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Die Hard is a lot of things, an action movie, an underdog movie, a cop movie, you could even make the arguments that it's a movie about family, police brutality and the modernisation of traditional westerns with police iconography. But it's not a Christmas movie, it's a movie that takes place at Christmas.
But to prove my point a little bit further, let's actually talk about what a Christmas movie should be. Christmas is a time of family, spreading joy and good times all around and Christmas movies are usually made to reflect that. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation shows the importance of family and love regardless of quarrels or issues individuals have with one another, Elf is about spreading joy in any form possible little or large and reigniting traditional values in the holidays and Arthur Christmas loving passion the holidays can bring out and how everyone deserves to be happy during the holidays. Of course Christmas Carol is kind of the king of these kind of stories, a man who has lost all sense of life and joy is taught to love and appreciate the holidays and give to the less fortunate while spreading peace and hospitality to those you work with, live with and are related to. The original Grinch story and animated film is also one of the masters of the craft, showing it's not about materialistic possessions but a sense of community and fun to be shared with all. Basically put, Christmas is about joy, not the joy found in presents, not the joy found in being with other people, but spreading it, by you making as many other people happy as possible and leave your own joy up to other people you love and trust, true you would hope this is an ideology humanity would hold year round, but we're kinda lazy like that, if anything Christmas is there to remind us that it's how we should behave, and sometimes we need a reminder. Ergo, if Christmas is about spreading joy, so are Christmas movies, for nothing else you should leave feeling happy, feel a sense of community and to spread joy unto other people and be excited for the holidays, all things Die Hard does not do.
Die Hard can make you feel a lot of things, you can get excited by the action, laugh your ass off at the quips, be on the edge of your seat during the big set pieces and even get a emotional during Sgt Powell. But it's not a movie that makes you think about the holidays, or what you can do to help your fellow man or be a little less greedy or anything like that. You watch a bunch of people get shot and you don't think it's a tragedy, you think "Wow! That was so cool!" You wonder what you would do in that situation and how the hell Karl can survive getting hung for so long. If anything the movie is anti-christmas, just look at the environment, Los Angeles, as far away as you can get from Christmas as humanly possible. when you think of Christmas you picture snow, the cold, things like that, not a place where you can sunbathe on the beach on Christmas Eve. And it's not just that it's hot, it's the culture, the stereotypical Los Angeles that we all think of is that of a bunch of vain, ego driven, flaky and shallow soul suckers who don't know the first thing about respect for your fellow man or acting selfless out of the goodness in your own heart. In other words: Ellis, Ellis is there to represent the stereotypical view of Los Angeles, obviously not everyone from LA is like that but this is a movie, people behave however we tell them to behave.
Los Angeles is not a place to spend Christmas in environment or in community, that's why the film is set there, John McClane is a fish out of water, he's a simple cop from New York, he doesn't belong in LA, it's far too flashy and superficial, John McClane doesn't belong in LA anymore than Christmas does. John McClane isn't Los Angeles and Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie.
-Danny
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