Christmas Family Movies

Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. It's a tradition in our family to spend the entire month watching Christmas movies at home. Here's my list of what I believe are the best that the whole family can enjoy.

A Christmas Story
Starring: Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella and Scott Schwartz
Some of my favorite parts of the movie are mommy's little piggy, the dogs ruining the
Christmas turkey, and everyone telling him 'you'll shoot your eye out!"

The Christmas List
Starring: Mimi Rogers, Rob Stewart, Marla Maples, Stella Stevens, Enuka Okuma and Bill Switzer
I always love movies where the loser wins in the end. Melody Parris has a stupid
boyfriend and a waste of a job in a perfume department where she is good at what
she does. She writes a Christmas list and drops it in Santa's mailbox and suddenly all her
wishes come true, but some with disastrous results.

A Charlie Brown Christmas
Who doesn't love when Linus tells the gang about the real meaning of Christmas, and the
tiny tree that Charlie Brown gets, everyone pitches in and makes it look magnificent in the end?

A Christmas Carol
Starring: Alistair Sim, Mervyn Johns, Jack Warner, Hermione Baddeley and Michael Hordern
There are simply too many versions of this movie! This is the only one of two versions of Charles Dickens classic that I really like.

Deck The Halls
Starring: Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick, Kristen Davis and Kristen Chenoweth.
Two neighbors David Finch(Broderick) and Buddy Hall(DeVito) whose wives get along, but they don't, competing to the point of insanity when Buddy wants his house to be seen from space.

Elf
Starring: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart, Zooey Deschanel, Edward Asner, Mary Steenburgen and Daniel Tay.
This movie is so funny! Bob Newhart as an elf? Will Farrell not comprehending that he is human, still acting like an elf in the end, sitting on Bob Newhart's lap is hilarious.

Home Alone
Home Alone 2: Lost In New York
Starring:Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O'Hara, John Heard, Roberts Blossom, and John Candy,John Heard, and Tim Curry.
The first Home Alone is the gem. Culkin being left behind from a neglectful family, and him being able to take care of himself and foil the crooks who break into his house. My favorite scene in Home Alone 2 is when Culkin is being chased in the hotel, and he turns on a video with a gangster movie and make the hotel employees get down on their knees.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Everyone starts out hating the green man in the beginning, but loving him in the end, when his heart gets bigger and he gives everything back to the town.

Miracle on 34th Street(1994)
Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott, J.T. Walsh, and James Remar.
If only Santa would really walk among the humans! I loved how McDermott proves in court Santa's innocence and how Santa tricks him and the ever cold Perkins into getting married, and the end is just magical when they move into the house that her little girl has always wanted.

Borrowed Hearts
Starring: Roma Downey, Eric McCormack, Shawn Thompson, Janet Bailey, Kevin Hicks, and Sarah Rosen Fruitman.
A business man who needs a family and the woman he hires and her daughter. A very good romantic movie with a little comedy thrown in.

The Christmas Card
Starring:John Newton, Alice Evans, and Edward Asner.
A captain in Afghanistan receives a card from a woman. He keeps her card as it always gives him the strength to move on and later find her. Wonderful romance.

The Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Starring:Tim Allen, Wendy Crewson, Judge Reinhold, Eric Lloyd, and David Krumholtz Elizabeth Mitchell
The very idea of Santa 'expiring' and the person who caused it has to be the next Santa is a great plot. In Santa Claus 2, he has to get married, and I love that, because in the first movie his ex was unfair to him concerning their son.

It's A Wonderful Life
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell and Henry Travers
A definite classic.

Jingle All The Way
Starring:Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad, Phil Hartman, Jake Lloyd, Rita Wilson, and Robert Conrad.
A businessman too busy for his family has to make it up to his son for missing yet another one of his special nights by getting an action figure. Arnold and Sinbad as a sidekick and the late Phil Hartman as the neighborhood Casanova is very funny.

Unaccompanied Minors
Starring:Dyllan Christopher, Dominique Saldana, Gina Mantegna, Quinn Shephard, Tyler James Williams, Brett Kelly, Lewis Black, and Wilmer Valderrama.
Kids going to see their parents over the holiday alone getting into mischief get caught and one kid is separated from his little sister. The group use their creative talents to do anything and everything to get to their destination-the hotel where the other people are staying.

The Preacher's Wife
Starring: Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, Courtney B. Vance, Gregory Hines and Jenifer Lewis.
An angel falls to earth and brings help to a preacher who asks for it, but gets a little close to his wife, Houston who is lonely. Based on the classic, the Bishop's Wife.

Cricket On The Hearth
Starring: Danny Thomas, Marlo Thomas
A classic animated tale of a Charles Dickens classic. A poor toymaker and his daughter befriends a cricket named Crockett. When tragedy strikes, Crockett helps to save the day and bring happiness back into their lives.

White Christmas
Starring: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney
Another Classic movie. What sticks with me most is the "Sisters" song and "Snow"

There are so many good Christmas movies out there. What are your favorites?