Top five holiday movie recommendations

There are many fun and festive activities that come along with the holiday season, including listening to music, hanging up lights, cooking food and watching films. Since the holidays are just around the corner, I’ve gathered a list of five holiday movies that everyone can enjoy during this holiday season.

1. “Elf”
Released in 2003, the film “Elf” is a classic Christmas movie about a child named Buddy who accidentally gets transported to the North Pole and is raised by Santas elves. As Buddy, played by famous comedian Will Ferrell, grows, he realizes that he is not like the other elves. He’s taller than them and he can’t make as many toys as the other elves. All he thinks he is good for is changing the light bulbs. Later, when Santa tells him that he is a human, he decides to embark on a journey to find his biological father in New York City. When Buddy meets his father, Walter, played by James Caan, it’s hard for them to connect because Buddy is so different. Towards the end of the movie, Buddy finds Santa stranded in Central Park on Christmas Eve after his sleigh runs out of gas due to the lack of Christmas spirit. The connections that Buddy makes throughout the film, including his crush Jovie, played by Zooey Deschanel, help bring the Christmas spirit to the city and save Santa and Christmas. This movie has many hilarious scenes, with many lines that will make you have a good belly laugh. This film is perfect for families to watch during the holiday break because everyone loves a feel-good movie. I watch this movie every year, and I never get bored of it. Even when it’s hard, “Elf” teaches you how to make connections and keep relationships.

2. The “Home Alone” series
There are three “Home Alone” movies in the series, and the first two movies are my personal favorites. In the first “Home Alone,” which came out in 1990, Kevin McCallister, the main character played by Macaulay Culkin, gets forgotten in the attic of his house on the morning his huge family embarks on their annual Christmas vacation. At first, when he realizes his family left without him and he and is home alone, he is happy as an eight-year-old boy doing whatever he wants. However, when he begins to see robberies in his neighborhood and that his house is the burglars’ next mark, he grows worried and puts himself into defense mode, crafting all sorts of burglar traps through his house. The second “Home Alone,” which came out in 1992, is quite similar to the first, but instead of Kevin’s family forgetting him at home, he accidentally gets on the wrong flight and makes his way to New York City by himself. Here, he attempts to stay at the Plaza Hotel but soon learns that the same robbers from the first movie are on the loose, and the robbers are trying to steal from an elderly man’s Christmas toy store. When Kevin sees this, he does everything he can to protect the store. This movie series is perfect for the holiday season, as the movies make you laugh but also put you on the edge of your seat. You can watch the movie series alone, with friends, or with family and have the same amount of fun. I look forward to these movies when the holiday season rolls around as they are funny and festive films.

3. “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” came out in 1965, and it has held up its popularity throughout the decades. This movie is all about spreading Christmas cheer. The film follows the iconic characters of the “Charlie Brown” TV show as they indulge in holiday activities while trying to get Charlie Brown in the Christmas spirit. This movie teaches you all about how to embrace community. This heart-warming short film is perfect for families with young children, but it’s also a classic for people of any age. This short film is around 30 minutes long, so after a tiring day of school or work, it’s the perfect film to enjoy by the fire and drink hot cocoa with. I have many memories of watching this as a kid during the last days of school before winter break, as well as watching it with friends or family. It’s a movie that will forever be my favorite.

4. “A Bad Moms Christmas”
This comedy Christmas movie is for an older audience as it’s about the chaotic life of three moms around the holiday season, and it’s the sequel to the film, “Bad Moms.” “A Bad Moms Christmas” was released in 2017 with actors Kathyrn Hahn, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell as the three moms. The moms deal with all the shopping, cooking and cleaning that the Christmas season brings, but on top of all that, their moms decided to go to visit them, making them more stressed than ever before. This movie makes you want to keep watching with its hilarious scenes full of family and friend feuds. It’s the perfect film to watch with friends during a Christmas-themed night. I watch this with my friends every year, and it always makes us all laugh.

5. “The Grinch”
The film “The Grinch” has seen the screens in many variations throughout the past couple of decades. Each time a new version of the popular movie gets released, warm memories of watching the original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” come back to me. The original came out in 1966, and the most recent one, “The Grinch,” came out in 2018, which is a modern cartoon reinterpretation of the original. There is also a live-action retelling from 2000. All three films have the same storyline. The Grinch is a creature in the town of Whoville who is different from the rest of the Whoville citizens. Since others bullied him as a child because of his odd looks and he never received any gifts, the Grinch hates everything about Christmas, despite living in a town where everyone is obsessed with it. As the story progresses and he tries to destroy the holiday for the rest of the town, he opens up to the idea that Christmas is good through a young girl named Cindy Lou Who. Cindy teaches him how the holiday is more about sharing love and not all that much about the gifts. This is a family movie night favorite for the festive season, and I have watched an edition of it every year since I was a little kid. It’s a movie you just can’t pass on during the holiday season.