“A sweet friendship refreshes the soul.” Proverbs 27:9

Every Christmas, I watch the 1946 movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Again last year, I found myself appreciating scenes I hadn’t discovered before. This time, it was watching Jimmie Stewart and Donna Reed dance the Charleston, just before falling into the swimming pool.

I didn’t limit my holiday watching to one movie. I also watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “The Station Agent.” Like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” they both lifted my spirits.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey feels like a failure, worth more dead than alive. But Clarence, the Angel Second Class trying to earn his wings, is sent to Bedford Falls to intervene. Just as George is about to jump off a bridge into a turbulent river, Clarence beats him to it. Clever angel, that Clarence. George rescues Clarence, and the two of them dry off in the bridge master’s hut. When Clarence introduces himself, George is bewildered, and the bridge master runs off.

When George later tells Clarence the world would have been better off if he’d never been born, Clarence outdoes himself and, in a cinematic tour de force, takes George on a journey through how the world would have been without him. George, whose life on Earth has been full of good deeds, is horrified by what he sees.

When money goes missing at Bailey’s Savings & Loan, due to the absentmindedness of George’s uncle and the mean-spiritedness of banker Henry Potter, the town’s Scrooge, the townspeople of Bedford Falls come to George’s rescue. Not out of pity, not out of anger towards Potter, not even out of gratitude for all George has done for them, but out of pure friendship.

I realized long ago that Charles “Sparky” Schulz was a special kind of genius. My visit a few months ago to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, Calif., only reinforced that understanding and deepened my appreciation. His timeless “Peanuts” characters have enriched my life.

It’s only a half-hour long, but “A Charlie Brown Christmas” packs a profound punch. No aluminum Christmas trees for Charlie Brown, who finds the holiday depressingly commercial. But Lucy comes to the rescue and asks Charlie Brown to direct the Christmas play. What a sight -- Schroeder at the piano, Pigpen on bass, rehearsal in disarray. Then Linus takes center stage and tells Charlie Brown, the entire cast and us the true meaning of Christmas.

Charlie Brown, Linus van Pelt, Peppermint Patty, and all the others, Snoopy included, care about each other. Lucy too, even if she never lets Charlie Brown kick the football.

“The Station Agent” is my favorite movie. The leading character is a man with dwarfism (Peter Dinklage), and the two other principal characters are a not-very-bright young man (Bobby Cannavale) and a divorced, grieving, middle-age woman (Patricia Clarkson).

Finbar McBride (Dinklage) lives a solitary life. When a fellow model train store employee dies and leaves Finbar an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey, he moves there to be alone with his loneliness. Joe Oramas (Cannavale) shows up with his snack truck and tries to strike up a conversation with Finbar, who isn’t interested. Then Olivia Harris, an erratic driver suffering from the loss of her son followed by the breakup of her marriage, nearly runs down Finbar.

Why would anyone want to watch a movie about these three misfits? The answer is that “The Station Agent” demonstrates how friendship can serve as an antidote to loneliness. They start spending time together. Then slowly, hesitatingly, come understanding, compassion and then, yes, friendship. 

My father, who was a poker player, told me you can count your real friends on one hand. If that’s true, I’ve been dealt a pretty good hand. With a new year beginning, I want to tell three lifetime friends from Claremont, who have known me from childhood to old age, how much they mean to me. I don’t see Ray Keating, Lynda (Hird) Spratley and Mike Weiner often enough, but these legacy friendships have endured over the decades. They are in my heart, and I will always cherish them.

Joseph D. Steinfield lives in Keene and Jaffrey. He can be reached at joe@joesteinfield.com.