From December 1st until Christmas Eve, here on the LAMB, we’ll be determining what is the BEST Christmas movie of all time. We’ve asked you all which films are the main contenders, and twenty-four of you replied with your choices, which will bauble battle it out for seasonal supremacy. It’s a head-to-head, single elimination tournament, so whichever film wins today moves onto the next round. However, here is not the only place to vote. No, head to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see the same poll there, and it’ll be the total of all four results that determines the winner.

Today’s tinsel tussle is the second match-up in the Family Group, and is between the number one seed, A Christmas Story, and the second play-off winner, Home Alone:

A Christmas Story vs Home Alone

A Christmas Story, championed by Miss Emma M M

Let’s talk about why A Christmas Story should be crowned the greatest Christmas movie. Holidays are ostensibly about family and the memories we make when we are with our family. The plot of A Christmas Story is not a big, showy production. It is simply about young Ralphie’s Christmas with his family and his hopes for the perfect Christmas present. Remember your childhood? Remember when you thought about what you would get for Christmas for at least a month? This is the highly effective hook of A Christmas Story. The story is told through the unique story device of an adult Ralphie providing the voiceover in retrospect.

As a child, my father sat the family down to watch A Christmas Story. I was initially uninterested. In the years holidays that ensued and the highly effective 24-hour cable marathons, pre-cutting the cord, watching A Christmas Story at least biannually became one of my family’s traditions.

This film is intentionally dated and intentionally cheesy. It is a way to connect to the child you were. When I watch this film with my father, it takes him back to his childhood. This is not because his childhood was exactly the same as the film. As an adult, I too experience nostalgia with this film.

This movie touches on many childhood struggles that a lot of us went through: the perfect Christmas toy, wearing giant snowsuits against your will, performing like a monkey at your parents’ request, meeting Santa, childhood fights, and dares. Most importantly, A Christmas Story is so effective at putting us in Ralphie’s shoes that we get to experience our own childhood again, even if it was actually superficially different. It is family friendly fare that is perfect to put on when everyone is gathered together this holiday season.

C’mon, let’s choose A Christmas Story as the greatest Christmas movie!

Home Alone championed by Alex Ramon from Boycotting Trends

With its 30th anniversary – yikes! – on the horizon (and hopefully a spectacular cast reunion in prospect to celebrate that fact), Chris Columbus’s Home Alone remains as enduringly popular now as ever, its glorious mixture of smart quips, sentiment and slapstick seemingly winning over new generations every time. As a Christmas film, it has everything you could want: warmth and wit, a wonderfully schmaltzy John Williams/Leslie Bricusse song with lyrics about “feeling that gingerbread feeling,” and an appreciation of family values that’s nicely tempered by ambivalence and scepticism. 8-year-old Kevin McCallister gets his Christmas wish to have his family disappear, thereby fulfilling the desire of many a kid who’s grown up feeling lost or unappreciated within the hubbub of their own household. Of course, he eventually wants his folks back – but not before he’s proved himself perfectly capable of surviving without them, whether that’s by braving the basement that previously terrified him, going on a coupon-savvy shopping trip, bonding with an unfairly maligned neighbour (in that way the movie advocates seeing beyond the family unit, too), or, most famously, fending off Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern’s “Wet Bandit” burglars with a dazzling display of booby-trap ingenuity that gives kiddie vigilantism a good name.

I and many others who were children when the film came out saw ourselves reflected in Kevin, of course. And Home Alone became a turning point in our movie-going lives, a moment in which films stopped being something you went to just “to pass the time” and instead turned into an all-consuming passion. Watched and re-watched in the cinema, and then at home on video (and not just at Christmas, either), endlessly quoted and acted out, Home Alone delighted, thrilled and empowered us. The film was a turning point for its screenwriter John Hughes, too, marking his move from teen cinema and adult comedies into the realm of family-friendly fun, and for its star, Macaulay Culkin, discovered by Hughes in Uncle Buck, who was catapulted into the big leagues thanks to his performance here. Culkin’s charisma is at the heart of the film’s appeal, but the terrific supporting cast shouldn’t be overlooked, from bro Kieran as the bed-wetting cousin (“Fuller, go easy on the Pepsi!”), to John Candy at his most adorable, to Catherine O’Hara, funny and touching as the mother who – inevitably – feels the guiltiest about leaving Kevin home alone. (For all the comedy it milks from extended-family tensions, the film still feels like a mother/son story at heart.)

The little movie that could, Home Alone‘s phenomenal box office success indicates just how strongly the movie resonated worldwide. I live in Poland these days, where I’m delighted to discover that the film is totally adored, with the traditional TV screening on the Polsat network still regularly pulling in the biggest audience of the season. In our uncertain times, there are few moments more comforting that settling down to the umpteenth screening of Home Alone and the happy reassurance that Culkin and co. will get us laughing, shedding a tear or two, and generally “feeling that gingerbread feeling” all over again.

Which is the better Christmas movie?

Tags: A Christmas Story, Boycotting Trends, Home Alone, Miss Emma MM