Why "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie

[Mike 03]

7. I've come to accept that "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie

Is a key factor that the movie has to take place around Christmastime, conveyed to the audience by music and scenery?

Your analysis is pretty good, except that #2 is really key to having a Christmas movie. Because actually almost every drama ever made has:

An interpersonal conflict between two or more of the main characters that is resolved favorably by the end of the film.

I would cut "favorably" and just say the conflict is "resolved," because many films don't have happy endings.

Is that one of the criteria for a Christmas Movie--that the conflict be resolved favorably, so we have a happy ending? That makes sense.

And this one, criteria #3:

A character who has a personal demon he defeats to become a whole person once again.

That seems to me to be a general definition of drama, going back to Shakespeare. In a really good work of drama, both of those qualifications (#1 and #3) are both met, because there is the external dramatic premise and the internal struggle that makes character change possible in the first place.

Anyway, I enjoy your analysis.