If you want to make your movie-watching Christmas complete, you must make sure there’s a viewing of this Christmas classic. No Christmas is happy until you witness Bing Crosby dancing with Danny fucking Kaye. Even if you’re not a musical-watching person, this musical is one to watch.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know the movie was made post-World War II in 1954 but it opens up ten years before in 1944 during the height of the war. Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Phil Davis (Kaye) are performers in the Army and are doing a Christmas show for their fellow troops. They sing a rendition of “White Christmas” and afterwards Wallace makes a speech about losing their commanding officer General Waverly (Dean Jagger), when unbeknownst to him Waverly is there in the audience watching the whole thing.

Suddenly there’s a bombing and everyone runs helter-skelter. A building almost falls on Wallace but Davis saves him, breaking his arm in the process. Davis holds this arm-breaking /life-saving incident over Wallace’s head throughout the movie. It’s how he worms his way into becoming a duo act with Wallace. Among other things.

About two weeks before Christmas the duo is performing in Florida and are getting ready to travel by train to New York to perform on the Ed Harrison show. Davis keeps trying to set Wallace up with any woman he sees free. Wallace informs Davis that while they’re there in Florida they have to go see an act. It turns out that they received a letter from an old Army buddy, Benny Haynes, and he is asking them to see his sisters Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy (Vera Ellen) perform at Novello’s. As it turns out, Judy wrote the letter and it’s interesting to note that Betty mentions their mother wrote to tell them Benny’s out of the country in Alaska. Because at the time of this movie, Alaska was not even a state yet!

So Wallace and Davis witness the Haynes sisters singing “Sisters” and in not-so-obvious ways they all fall for each other. We learn that Judy is as interested as getting Betty settled down as Davis is as getting Wallace settled down. And who knows? Maybe Judy and Davis will hit it off as well.

Davis learns that the girls are headed to the Columbia Inn in Vermont to perform over the holidays. And the girls learn that the sheriff is there to arrest them because they owe the landlord $200 for burning a hole in a rug. Davis sneaks them the train tickets because their train tickets aren’t good until the next day. Ironically, Davis and Wallace happen to end up on the same train. And they don’t end up going to New York. They end up going to snowy Vermont.

They arrive in Vermont, minus the snow. Go to the Columbia Inn and ironically discover that–gasp!–General Waverly owns the place. What are the chances?

And the inn, normally jumping this time of year, is hurting because of the lack of snow. Wallace and Davis get the idea of moving their show up there to bring in business. So be ready for a lot of singing and dancing. Great dancing. Dancing that even if you’re not into dancing, you’re going to enjoy it. Davis and Judy are mesmerizing in their moves.

A slow burning love story plays out between Wallace and Betty, as well as between Davis and Judy. A little tiff happens between Betty and Wallace when she thinks he’s pulling some kind of business stunt when all he’s really trying to do is get General Waverly’s platoon to the inn for Christmas. Because the General is down on his luck and is depressed because Washington doesn’t want him any longer.

In the end it’s a truly happy ending for all when Davis and Wallace become Davis, Wallace, Betty and Judy. And what better way to end it than with the same way it began: singing “White Christmas”.