Jim Glassman doesn’t care for the children’s Santa Claus movie “Polar Express,” but our three kindergarteners love it (which is somewhat ironic, since the screenwriter for Polar Express once sent a less-than-warm letter to this blog). One of my sons even asked for sneakers with “Polar Express” characters on them for Christmas.

What strikes me about Jim Glassman’s screed against Santa Claus movies is this: He’s seen them. I think a man who can write “what rot” about “Miracle on 34th Street,” a movie he credibly could have seen as a child, wouldn’t have wasted time and possibly money to watch their modern-day cousins. Yet he knows the Polar Express plotline better than I, the driver of a minivan in which the movie is constantly playing, and the plotlines of other recent Santa films as well.

I think Jim Glassman has a secret warm spot for schmaltzy Santa movies. What I wonder is: Why deny it?

Must be a guy thing.