Top 10 holiday movies

Whether your favourite holiday flick is Home Alone, or you're more of an Elf person, we can all agree that a cup of hot chocolate and holiday film is one of the best parts of the season. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

SPENCER EGERHAZI

The holiday season is coming around soon, and it’s easily one of the busiest and craziest times of the year. It can sometimes be stressful with all the preparations and presents to buy. Sometimes, we just need to relax during this crazy time of the year by doing something relaxing.

Whether it’s putting on an iconic seasonal song like “All I Want For Christmas is You,” or going out for a walk on a snowy day, or putting on one of your favourite holiday movies with a nice cup of hot chocolate.

However, there are so many holiday movies out there, you don’t have the time to put on all of them. Lucky for you, I’ve come up with a list of my top 10 holiday movies so you have some priorities in case you can’t watch them all during the holiday season.

10. Happiest Season

“Happiest Season” is a super cute holiday movie about the importance of family, friends and a special someone all being able to get along during the holidays. The movie follows partners Harper and Abby. Harper takes Abby with her to meet her parents for Christmas. However, Harper hasn’t come out to her family yet It’s a holiday movie that’s definitely worth the watch for a heartwarming family movie.

9. The Polar Express

“The Polar Express” is a classic holiday movie that is quite beloved by many. It’s a sweet children’s movie about a boy who goes on a train to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. It’s just such a timeless movie that is something to watch during the holiday season for nostalgia or for a sweet, little movie to spend your time on a winter night.

8. Rudolph the RedNosed Reindeer

Now, this is an all time classic little movie that’s just so special to watch (or rewatch for many). It’s special for so many to watch, due to the song that the movie is based off of, and for its heartwarming message about being yourself. I love how it’s about accepting yourself even when it’s difficult to fit in with the others. It holds such a deep meaning for a cute, little holiday movie.

7. A Bad Moms Christmas

“A Bad Moms Christmas” is a very funny Christmas movie about the difficulty of everyone getting along during the holiday season. The movie follows three mothers trying to make the perfect Christmas for their families while their own mothers come home for the holidays. All three of their mothers are quite interesting characters, to say the least. It’s just a hilarious movie to lighten the mood whenever that time of year becomes too much to handle at times. 6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Now, there are many different variants of this movie, but the one I’m referring to is the 2000 version. It’s the one I grew up watching every year with my family. Jim Carrey is the one who plays the Grinch, and he plays the character quite wildly, for sure. The Grinch decides to steal Christmas by taking everyone’s gifts during the night on Christmas Eve since he hates the holiday, but he soon learns Christmas is more than gifts. This is a must watch if you want your heart to grow three sizes.

5. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Yes, Muppets. I’m serious. This is a rendition of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, but with Muppets. I watched it every year with my family during the holiday season, so maybe that’s why I have a special connection to it over the original, but it is actually such a cute version of it. Where a grumpy man named Ebenezer Scrooge has different ghosts from past, present and future teach him a lesson about the importance of getting along with your community and the holiday spirit.

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas

In the last few years, I’ve noticed many people feeling like they need to decide whether Halloween or Christmas is the better holiday, but why not both? This movie is a classic since it is one to watch during both times of the year. It’s about a skeleton who lives in a Halloween world, but he finds there are different worlds for all holidays, and he finds a Christmas world, where he wants to join that holiday too. A classic movie that will always be iconic.

3. Little Women

“Little Women” is such a good movie. Based on the book by Louisa May Alcott, it’s a really nice winter movie. It’s not technically a holiday movie, but it’s winter-themed, so that definitely counts. It’s a drama about four sisters all growing up in the 19th century, dealing with young womanhood. There’s romance, heartbreak, and becoming a writer. I would highly recommend it if you're sick of all the holiday movies during the holiday season, and you just want something wintery instead.

2. Home Alone

“Home Alone” is easily one of the most recognizable holiday movies of all time. It’s such a heartwarming movie. A large family goes on vacation during the holidays, but they manage to lose one of the family members, a boy named Kevin. He is stuck all alone at home, which he finds fun at first, but then robbers come to his wealthy-looking house, and he must defend it while his family is away. It’s a funny, sweet, classic holiday movie that is so iconic for the holiday season.

1. Elf

“Elf” is my favourite holiday movie ever. It’s just so funny, so silly, so sweet, so heartwarming. Everything that’s important to remember during the holiday season. An elf named Buddy finds out he’s actually human, after thinking he’s an elf most of his life. He joins the human world to meet his biological dad all those years later, and they have a rough start at first, since his dad never knew of his existence up until then, but they start to get along, and it’s just such a sweet movie to watch during the holiday season. 10/10, would highly recommend it.

So there you have it, my ranking of my top 10 holiday movies. It’s always fun to watch movies as a tradition during the holiday season. So, if you’re looking for some top options to watch, here are mine.

ICONS BY FLATICON

Technically RENT isn’t a Christmas movie, but a majority of it takes place during the holidays. It’s a tale of New York during the height of the AIDS epidemic and takes on hard hitting themes like addiction. If you’re in the mood for great music and a story that will shake you to your core, definitely give RENT a watch this holiday season.