Santa's cheeks are rosy tears

In other posts I wrote about trying to create "impossible plotlines." I think the same can be said for "impossible tones." How can you make a movie that has an unlikely tone? Like something about Christmas that is positive yet not self-conscious and not about the "wonder" of Christmas? I got this idea from reading something by Scorsese. He said one problem of student films is that they aren't about anything. A film needs content, he said, even if it's just setting a certain mood.