Top 10 Christmas Movies

So this list might be a little early for Christmas but if I don't do it while I'm thinking about it then I'll for get and I'll be making this list after Christmas.

I guess "early" depends on your perspective. Traditionally, at least when I was growing up, the Christmas season started immediately after Thanksgiving. In more recent years, that date seems to have crept forward quite a bit. Now it is common to see Christmas stuff for sale in stores starting before Halloween and one of my local radio stations switched to all Christmas music on November 1st. People have also started decorating earlier in recent years. I think I saw the first Christmas decorations a week or two ago. All of this is from a U.S. perspective. In some places, preparation for Christmas starts much earlier. For instance, in the Philippines you'll start seeing Christmas decorations as early as September.

But I digress... This post is supposed to be about Christmas movies. I prefer light-hearted comedies (non-Romantic) in my Christmas movies so this list is heavily oriented towards those types of movies. In approximate order, my favorites are:

1. Home Alone
2. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
3. Christmas With The Kranks
4. The Santa Clause
5. Home Alone 2
6. Jingle All The Way
7. Elf
8. Deck The Halls
9. The Santa Clause 2
10. A Christmas Story

Honorable mentions would include Scrooged, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Four Christmases, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Santa Clause 3, Polar Express, Die Hard, Gremlins, Home Alone 3, and probably others I'm forgetting at the moment.

The first three Home Alone movies and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation are all John Hughes movies and you can't really go wrong with one of his movies. Christmas With The Kranks seems to be a somewhat controversial choice but I really enjoy it. Likewise the Santa Clause movies also feature Tim Allen and he just seems to do a good job with Christmas comedies though the quality of the movies did drop off pretty fast after the first one. I haven't watched the series. Elf is a modern classic. Deck the Halls features Matthew Broderick and Danny Devito, two actors I enjoy watching and make for a great comedic duo. Jingle All The Way features Arnold Schwarzenegger who may not be the greatest actor in the world but his comedies are almost always funny.

So what are your favorite Christmas movies?