Between opening presents and eating dinner with the family there’s always time for a Christmas movie. They’re usually touching, feel good, family-oriented, humorous – and kitsch. But the kitsch blends wonderfully with that warm holiday feeling.

I’ve gathered different kinds of kitsch… or shall I say kitsch-with-a-twist? Here are ten movies you might enjoy watching at home under the blanket while it’s snowing outside - and one that involves putting on your earmuffs and going to a theater near you.

10. Love Actually (2003)

Watch with the heat off, this movie will provide you all the warmth you need

This zingy, kitschy British comedy (yes, Brits can be kitsch too) weaves a vivid crazy quilt of interlocking or unrelated vignettes all dealing with the subject of love over the Christmas holidays in London. The big-name cast includes Hugh Grant as a prime minister who falls for a staff member, Liam Neeson as a widower counseling his son in the ways of romance, Laura Linney as a shy woman working up the nerve to ask out a coworker, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman as a couple facing infidelity, and Colin Firth as a writer who falls for his Portuguese maid.

Love, Actually is a laugh-packed affair with more than a few tears to be shed along the way, and a startling amount of bawdy raunchiness.

Watch a scene from Love Actually

9. Gremlins (1984)

Watch with your pet

Joe Dante’s hilariously funny, wickedly scary film is about a loveable, furry little Christmas gift, nicknamed Gizmo, that multiplies into many little Christmas gifts - with savage consequences.

The thing is that Gizmo came with three crucial instructions. He’s not to be fed after midnight, he’s not to get any direct light and he should never be given so much as a drop of water. And as always, rules were meant to be broken…

Gremlins introduced Gizmo and his wild relatives to an entire generation of young fans that till this very day find themselves grinning at the sound of hysteric screaming “bright light! bright light!” or “Gizmo caca”…

Watch a scene from Gremlins

8. Elf (2003)

Watch with Zooey Deschanel

Will Ferrell makes yet another memorable splash on the big screen in Jon Favreau’s sweet and hilarious Christmas fable.

Ferrell is Buddy, an innocent figure who was raised as an elf in the North Pole by his adoptive father, Papa Elf (Bob Newhart). When Buddy discovers that he’s actually a human being, he heads to New York City to reunite with his biological father (James Caan).

Favreau’s film is family entertainment at its finest, featuring a performance by Ferrell that is at once innocent, tender, and laugh-out-loud funny. The stellar supporting cast also includes the charming Zooey Deschanel.

Watch the first 10 min of Elf

7. Smoke (1995)

Watch with a… cigar, obviously (no glass of brandy though, there is a recession you know…)

In 1990, novelist Paul Auster was asked to contribute a Christmas story to the New York Times. The resulting piece, “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story,” formed the basis for his screenplay for Smoke. Directed by Wayne Wang and set in a Brooklyn cigar store, the story was expanded by Auster to include four other characters whose lives intertwine with Auggie (Harvey Keitel), the manager of the store that serves as a neighborhood meeting place.

The actual Christmas story appears at the end in a beautiful black-and-white montage, accompanied by a bittersweet Tom Waits song.

Watch a scene from Smoke

6. The Santa Clause (1994)

Watch so you know not to accept every job offer that promises a free vehicle. Not even if it’s a flying one…

When Santa Claus gets killed in a freak accident after being startled on the rooftop of a house, it looks like Christmas is ruined. Fortunately, just before his death, the jolly gift-giver passed the torch to ad executive Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), who finishes the job of bestowing holiday cheer on all. When he finally reaches the North Pole, Scott learns that he can’t give up the job - he’s become the next Santa Claus. Scott returns home, only to find himself slowly changing into the pudgy, white-haired old man so beloved by children… and to find that everyone around him considers him utterly and completely mad.

Watch the first 10 min of The Santa Clause

5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Don’t watch with Antonioni or Bergman enthusiasts around, they might find this one below par…

The third in the series of National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation’ films concerns the Griswold family’s holiday get-together. This time they’re trying to have a picture-book, old-fashioned Christmas - even though all the in-laws are dropping by, including Clark (Chevy Chase)’s redneck cousin, Eddie (Randy Quaid). Looks like it’s going to be a real holly-jolly holiday - if they can make it through.

Watch the first 9 min of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

4. Bad Santa (2003)

Don’t watch with anyone who still believes in Santa, this movie might ruin it for them.

Billy Bob Thornton is terrific as Willie T. Stokes, a lowlife department-store Santa in Terry Zwigoff’s outrageous comedic follow-up to his offbeat hit Ghost World. Every year, Stokes takes a job as Santa in a different place in order to rob the store he’s working in. Brett Kelly is Thurman Merman, an eight-year-old who desperately needs to believe in the real Santa Claus - and just might have a good enough heart to change Stokes’s evil ways.

It is lewd, crude, and very funny - but most definitely not for children.

Watch selected scenes from Bad Santa

3. Home Alone (1990)

Watch at home, alone

Eight-year-old Kevin MacAllister (Macaulay Culkin)’s large, upper-middleclass suburban family rushes to make a plane that will take them to their Christmas vacation in France. Kevin, banished to an attic room as punishment, is forgotten. At first this is a dream come true, as for the first time in his young life he has no one to answer to but himself, and he takes full advantage of his new-found freedom, eating junk food and watching late-night horror flicks. But when the bumbling Wet Bandits Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) target his house for a robbery, Kevin must step up to defend his home.

Watch the first 9 min of Home Alone

2. A Christmas Story (1983)

Watch with a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie. (Nothing to do with the movie, but it’s never bad advice.)

Deliciously warped and winsome boyhood memories of Christmas are told by a typical American man revisiting his native Indiana during the 1940s. Among other childish pursuits, his overriding obsession to finally own a genuine Red Ryder BB gun consumes his feverish imagination. Based on Jean Shepherd’s novel, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.”

Watch the first 10 min of A Christmas Story

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Watch with a box of tissues - the soft kind so you won’t damage your eyes

The ultimate Christmas film is about a good but slightly ineffectual man who tries to end his life over an error that really wasn’t his fault. In Christmas Carol fashion, his crusty-but-lovable guardian angel shows up to give him a tour of the world without his presence. It isn’t a pretty place. Moral courage, small-town American life, civic cooperation, and family love are glorified; corporate greed and self-involvement are vilified. At the climax, a blanket of snow like spun sugar makes everything pure and clean like redemption itself.

Watch a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life

And a bonus one in a theater near you:

Nothing Like The Holidays (2008)

Watch with no cell phones ringing in the background

This new comedy drama is about a Christmas family gathering in Chicago. After Anna, the mother of the family, announces to her children that she is planning to divorce their father, Eduardo, everyone starts contemplating the past and thinking about the future.

This new contribution to holiday films might not contribute anything original to the formula, but its strong side is the great interaction between its ensemble cast members, including Freddy Rodriguez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Luis Guzman, Alfred Molina, Jay Hernandez and Elizabeth Peña.

Watch Nothing Like the Holidays trailer

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