Most people during the holidays like to sit around watching their favorite holiday movies.

Holiday movies are usually about families and/or friends coming together for Christmas, but in these movies, Christmas isn’t as perfect as you think it is. There’s always something that ruins Christmas day. Whether it’s misbehaving children, animals or even the parents, there’s always something that ruins it at first. But in the end, the family realizes that they are happy with what they have. Here are some recommended holiday movies!

#1. The Nightmare before Christmas. This Tim Burton film is about the adventures of Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloweentown. Jack gets bored of the same old things happening every day, until one day he stumbles upon a place called Christmastown. This magical place is full of happy children, bright lights and colors and snow! Jack decides to kidnap Santa so he (Jack) can take over Christmas. This holiday movie is debated whether its a Halloween or a Christmas movie. Either way, I 10/10 recommend it.

#2. A Christmas Story. This film, taking place in the 1940’s, stars nine year old Ralphie Parker, who spends all of his time dodging a school bully and daydreaming about his ideal Christmas gift, a “Red Ryder air rifle”. But of course “you’ll shoot your eye out” as everyone says. As he struggles to make it to Christmas he overcomes many punishments and problems. This hilarious holiday movie is definitely an 11/10 on my list.

#3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Whether it’s the 2000 film or the 1966 television series, the Grinch still manages to steal Christmas. In this classic film, the Grinch and his pup Max decide to steal ruin everything about Christmas for the cheery people of Whoville. On Christmas Eve, the evil Grinch sneaks to town dressed as Santa Clause to steal everything holiday related from the Whos. When he comes across the sweet ‘Cindy-lou-who’ everything changes. This classic film always seems to be playing in everyone’s house during the christmas season. 10/10 recommend.

#4. The Polar Express. Based on the children’s book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg, this film is about a young boy on Christmas Eve, skeptical to believe in Santa Claus. As he struggles to sleep, he is awoken by a loud train outside his house. He decides to investigate; while doing so, the trains conductor introduces the train as the Polar Express, heading for the North Pole. The boy then declines but jumps onto the train as it’s leaving. When on the train, he meets a sweet bright little girl, a “know-it-all” boy, and another boy named Billy. They go through many problems including a forgotten train ticket. The train finally arrives at the North Pole, but the conductor announces that only one child will be picked to receive the first Christmas gift from Santa, which causes even more problems. This is an older movie but a definite favorite for most!

#5. Home Alone. The McCallister family is planning on spending Christmas in Paris. The family decides to meet at Peter and Kate’s house just outside of Chicago. Peter and Kate’s youngest son, 8 year old Kevin, is being tortured by his siblings and cousins and ruins the family dinner during a fight with his brother, Buzz. He then gets sent to sleep in the attic, where he wishes that his family would disappear. Overnight, a strong wind cause damage to the power lines and creates a power outage which resets the family’s alarm clocks, which results in them sleeping in, waking up in a rush trying to catch their flight…and leaving Kevin home alone. Kevin then wakes up to an empty house and, assuming his wish came true, is overjoyed by the freedom. He then finds out his next door neighbor, Old man Marley, who is a rumored serial killer, and Harry and Marv, a set of burglars have been breaking into vacant houses in the neighborhood, have targeted the McCallister house! Kevin then decides to trick them into thinking his family is still home, which causes their plans to be on hold. Realizing he is home alone on Christmas Eve, Kevin overhears the two burglars planning how to break in. He fills the house with traps from BB guns, getting burned, scared and knocked out, to being covered in glue and feathers. I’ve personally never seen this movie, but it’s one of the most popular holiday movies to play during this time of year.

Of course there’s more holiday movies than these 5 but these are probably the most well known and most watched movies for this time of year. My family enjoys these movies and hopefully yours does too!! Happy Holidays!! <3