What Your Favorite Christmas Movie Says About You As a Person

What does your favorite festive flick say about you? Lots, actually. I came to these conclusions with scientific research (read: personal opinions and snap judgments) so if, for whatever reason, you feel obliged to question their accuracy, well, that sounds exactly like the kind of thing someone whose favorite movie is The Santa Clause 3 WOULD say.

Love Actually (2003)
You are meticulous, detail-oriented, and a multi-tasker, which is how you’re able to keep track of all the intersecting storylines. There are so many things going on in this movie that I cannot say, with confidence, that I know a single person’s name. I know Keira Knightly is in it, and also Liam Neeson, and that guy from The Walking Dead. But I just learned recently that Hugh Grant’s character is named David, and that shocked me.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
You are the wild card of your social circle, and you worship chaos.

Elf (2003)
You are an optimist, starry-eyed with visions of a utopia where Santa’s sleigh runs on the inexhaustible fuel of Christmas cheer. Some people might ask “But how did Buddy travel all the way to New York City from the North Pole on a block of ice?” and the correct answer is “Nobody cares.” Elf is amazing, end of discussion. If there are indeed multiple parallel universes and alternate realities, I like to think that Elf exists in every single one of them.

Frosty the Snowman (1969)
You are constantly aware of your own mortality and the ever-tightening noose that is time.

Home Alone (1990)
You’re imaginative and sometimes aloof. As you grow older, you find yourself yearning for a simpler time—a time when all you had to worry about was what you were getting for Christmas this year and whether or not hilariously incompetent burglars were going to lay siege to your homestead.

Home Alone 5: The Holiday Heist (2012)
You’re self-assured and open-minded and you don’t care what anyone thinks of you, which is why you’re able to claim this movie as your favorite without fear of judgment or acrimony.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
You are living your life one existential crisis to the next.

The Santa Clause (1994)
You have a twisted sense of humor, and sometimes this makes people uneasy. You must know this already. This can’t be news to you. Your favorite Christmas movie features Tim Allen procuring the position of Santa Claus through unrepentant manslaughter, for God’s sake. And it’s billed as a comedy.

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
You are weak-willed and ignorant and you have never loved anything.

Jack Frost (1998)
You fear neither pain nor death and I, for one, can’t look you in the eye. This movie is… well, it’s something, let’s just say that. Imagine, if you will, a feel-good movie about a father who dies in a snowstorm and comes back to tell his son to let go, except the father is now a sentient snowman and I’m 100% serious. Is this anyone’s favorite movie? Am I just shouting into the void?

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
You’ve had as many as three positive feelings in your entire lifetime, and you have no desire to experience more. Look, I know this movie’s supposed to be uplifting in the end, but jeez.

Unaccompanied Minors (2006)
What this says about you is that you are actually me. This is my personal favorite, even though it isn’t a classic by any metric and is only passably enjoyable as a film. Nobody in the history of the world has ever cared about this movie and even less people have seen it, but I still watch it every year without fail. It simply wouldn’t be Christmas otherwise.

The Polar Express (2004)
You have never been on a train, and now, because of this movie, you have unrealistic expectations. In all likelihood, you will not journey to the North Pole with a cast of colorful characters and receive a bell that rings only for those who believe. Probably your train will just be very slow, and all the good snacks will be gone.