There’s no better way to spend your vacation by curling up on a sofa and watching Christmas movies, and your streaming services have you covered this year.
We’ve searched HBO Max to find the real needles in the vast haystack of vacation titles, both movies and TV shows, to give you the guide you need to settle in and soak up the world. Christmas joy.
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HBO Max has a nice combination of modern favorites and beloved classics, as well as less popular movies that give you a good alternative if you’re sick of the usual suspects.
We’ll share the full list of their top vacation options, but if we had to pick a few:
A Christmas Story (1983): Yes, it’s been on cable tirelessly this season, and we know every line at the right time (“You’re going to get by!), But I challenge you to give us a purer, more nostalgic vacation movie experience than What Ralphie, his old man, the leg lamp, the Bumpus dogs, Ovaltine and the Red Ryder BB pistol. Without this movie, we would never know that nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a can of simonize.
Elf (2003): The newest consensus Christmas classic? Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a man raised as an elf who travels from the North Pole to New York to meet his biological father who doesn’t know he exists. What is your favourite colour?
Lethal Weapon (1987): Like “Die Hard”, this takes place during the holiday season, so we’re counting it. Any excuse to include the late Richard Donner’s action classic starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as cops Riggs and Murtaugh, respectively.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989): The first two “Vacation” entries gave us little reason to believe that Clark Griswold wouldn’t totally turn around on vacation, which he does with a shovel here, chopping down his own huge tree, finding himself stuck in an icy attic. , gulping eggnog after bad news and groping through a reluctant flirtation with a department store lingerie clerk.
The corner shop (1940): Two employees of a gift shop can barely stand each other, not realizing that they fall in love in the mail as an anonymous correspondent for each other in Ernst Lubitsch’s sweet film starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart.
Christmas Movies on HBO:
Batman Returns
Black christmas
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
A Christmas story
A Christmas story 2
Dear christmas
Terrace the rooms
Elf
Elmo saves Christmas
Eyes wide closed
Four Christmases
Fred claus
Friday after next
Gremlins
Harry potter
holiday affair
It happened on Fifth Avenue
Jack frost
Deadly weapon
Meet me in Saint-Louis
Miracle on 34th Street (both versions)
My gift: a Christmas special from Carrie Underwood
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
It was a Sesame Street Christmas
The Polar Express
The corner shop
Christmas episodes from these TV shows:
12 Christmas dates
Adam ruins everything
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
The Big Bang Theory
The Boondocks
A different world
Doctor Who
Family affairs
The prince of Bel-Air
Friends
Ghosts
Gossip Girl
I’m hanging out with Mr. Cooper
Looney Tunes
The middle
The nanny
CO
Rick and morty
robot chicken
South Park
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, great job!