The holiday season is here. The snowflakes are lighting up Poplar Avenue, tree lots are opening and families are settling in to watch their first Christmas movie of the year.

Classics like Home Alone and Elf return to screens and even some new Christmas movies, like this year’s Happiest Season have released. These movies have all the best qualities of a good holiday flick, and they are full of the Christmas spirit.

“Usually when I watch a Christmas movie, it always has to have a good plot, a good story and at the end there always has to be something really good that happens that you could maybe learn from or just maybe make you feel good about yourself,” Baron Hendricks (10) said.

When I think of Christmas movies, Home Alone is one of the first to come to mind. Released thirty years ago, it is a true classic and many families rewatch it every year. The movie follows Kevin, a young boy who must defend his home against burglars after his family accidentally leaves for their winter vacation without him. 

“It is my favorite Christmas movie, like ever,” Hendricks said. “I’ve watched it every year since I can remember.” 

Kevin realizes the importance of his family only after they are gone, so his reunion with his mother makes for an uplifting ending. Throughout the whole film, the audience is rooting for Kevin, and we know he will be able to take down the burglars, which is what makes the physical comedy of the film so great.

“It’s special to me because the actor playing him [Kevin] in the first Home Alone movie, his way of thinking and how he was able to make all those traps, that’s something that appealed to me when I was younger,” Hendricks said. 

Another classic Christmas film that comes to mind is Elf, one that my family watches every Christmas season. Elf follows Buddy, a human raised by elves who travels to New York City in search of his father.

It’s very warm and Christmassy and it’s kind of old, so it’s a classic,” Harini Gopi (10) said.

Elf makes for a great timeless movie as the small jokes and details allow for rewatches. It excels at showing us how much of an outsider Buddy is by using things like camera perspective and comedy to compare Buddy to those around him. Elf’s charm comes from its storybook use of things like magic and the spirit of Christmas.

“I think it’s different than the others,” Gopi said. “I feel like no one really talks about elves, and I feel like it’s a very different story than usual.”

One element all Christmas movies seem to share is an uplifting ending that leaves the audience with a feeling of hope. Happiest Season, which just released on Hulu at the beginning of December, does just that. The story follows Abby, who hopes to propose to her girlfriend Harper while the two spend Christmas with Harper’s dysfunctional family. The only problem is that Harper isn’t out of the closet.

From the opening scene where the couple gets stuck on a rooftop while looking out at the lights, it is clear that Happiest Season has all the things needed to make a classic Christmas film. It deals with the importance of family, whether that be biological or chosen, it has unique characters and great comedy, and it restores hope just when it seems all is lost. Happiest Season also offers something severely lacking in the Christmas movie genre: LGBTQ+ representation. 

“Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, so i’m always ready for a Christmas movie anytime of the year,” Hendricks said.