Having spent more time at home than usual this year, I really felt George’s pain each time an opportunity to leave Bedford Falls slipped away. “I just feel like if I didn’t get away I’d bust!” George tells his dad, who longs for his son to stay home and take over the family’s loan business.

He keeps travel brochures in his coat pocket. His eyes light up at the sound of train whistles. More than half of “It’s a Wonderful Life” is spent introducing viewers to the plight of George Bailey, a man who wants nothing more than to leave the small town of Bedford Falls, New York, and see the world. Maybe it’s because the pandemic and mental health have been major issues this year - or the fact that I got tested for COVID-19 the day before watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” - but this passage at the start of the film really stuck out to me. The film is 74 years old, but the story about a man who longs to get out of town - and who grows more and more disgruntled as his plans fall through - embodies what just about everyone has gone through during this trying year. But in a year when COVID-19 has been a dominating storyline, “It’s a Wonderful Life” took on new meaning for me. Watching it on a Sunday afternoon in 2020 was no different. And, without fail, I become a blubbering mess by the movie’s end, when Harry Bailey delivers his short but powerful toast: “ To my big brother George, the richest man in town.” Somehow, I always manage to cry at all of the same parts.

And that’s not counting the times I’ve seen it as a rerun on TV, or the times my editor has done his uncanny George Bailey impression in the office. I was around that age when I started watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” with my parents every year, typically on Christmas Eve - which means I’ve seen the film at least 19 times. At the start of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a 12-year-old George Bailey jumps into ice-cold water to save his younger brother, Harry, from drowning in a sledding accident - a heroic action that costs George his hearing in his left ear.

How long is it's a wonderful life