Bunch Family

From the traditional to the hilarious, here are five holiday movies we love

We asked you guys which movies never fail to get your bunch in the holiday spirit, and a few titles were clear favourites. We recommend renting a few of these and watching them on an icy-cold day with some hot drinks and freshly-baked spice cookies. And be sure to check out film critic Richard Crouse‘s list for us too, as he mentions a few we almost forgot about.

5. Eight Crazy Nights (2002)

Best thing about this animated Hanukkah movie is its inclusion of “The Hanukkah Song,” a Sandler-penned list of reasons why Hanukkah is awesome. We reckon it helped many a Jewish kid feel less weird about not celebrating Christmas.

4. White Christmas (1954)

A no-brainer, right? Bing Crosby singing Christmas songs. Singing, dancing, toe-tapping fun against a snowy backdrop. Even people who claim they don’t like musicals melt when they watch this.

3. Home Alone (1990)

You have to suspend your disbelief and buy in to the idea that an 8-year-old kid would stand a chance against two burglars. But once you do, this wacky romp becomes one of the best things John Hughes ever wrote. Also, we feel Mitch Murphy, who is kind of responsible for the whole Kevin-getting-left-behind thing, is an oft-overlooked character. “How fast does this thing go? Does it have automatic transmission? Does it have four-wheel drive?”

2. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

A number of you very enthusiastically mentioned this as the holiday movie that cracks your family up year after year. We’re just curious how many of you let your kids watch the classic Clark Griswold freakout scene (you know, the one with the Jelly of the Month club?). Or the part where Clark hallucinates about the sexy salesgirl skinny-dipping in his pool? Whatever, we watched both those scenes when we were kids, and just look at how we turned out.

1. Elf (2003)

Overwhelmingly, you guys named this Will Ferrell-starring movie about an elf who is really a human as one of your family’s favourites. Is it because of the scene when Zooey Deschanel sings “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in Central Park? That bit gets us every time. We also like watching him drown his spaghetti in maple syrup, much to Mary Steenburgen’s horror.

Date night suggestion: Once the kids have gone to bed, we recommend The Hebrew Hammer (2003), a blaxploitation parody about a Jewish superhero who must defeat an evil Santa Claus who wants to force everyone to celebrate Christmas. We suggest it not because it’s a funny movie or even a good movie, but because we know that you Hanukkah-celebrating parents need a movie that’s just for you.

Photo by Zellaby via Flickr.