What is the “best” holiday movie? How does one even go about defining such a thing? It was decided that the most efficient way to determine the “best” holiday movie was to ask a select group of individuals about their favorite holiday movies. After handing out a total of 54 surveys to Whitman students in which the recipients had to fill out their first, second, and third favorite movies, a few trends became noticeable.

In terms of which movies were the most commonly selected as students’ favorites, an honorable mention goes to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) with a respectable 18 votes. Third place was awarded to Elf with 24 votes while second prize went to The Polar Express with 27 votes. The first place winner, by a very slim margin, is Home Alone with a whopping 28 votes!

Another way to answer this question would be to analyze which movies received the most votes in each individual category. The third most-liked holiday movie was surprisingly not one of the “big three,” but actually went to the previously mentioned fourth place winner of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) with 8 votes; however, each of the big three did get 7 votes. When it came to the second most-loved holiday movie, Home Alone won with a total of 12 votes, while second place in that category, The Polar Express, only had 8.

So which movie did Whitman students pick as their favorite? The answer to this may be slightly disappointing to some since it actually ended in a tie between The Polar Express and Elf, both chosen a grand total of 11 times as the survey recipients’ most favored holiday movie. 

When determining the “best” holiday movie, would you pick the movie that was considered by most to be their absolute favorite or would you choose a movie that was so well made that it was the movie written the most in all three categories? Well, why not take both into account? Since both Elf and The Polar Express received first place in the most-liked category, it is safe to assume, according to this sample of high schoolers, that The Polar Express is the better-appreciated movie since Elf only got 24 votes in total while The Polar Express got 27 votes. Using the same logic, as Home Alone only got 9 votes when it came to the category of the most liked holiday movie, while The Polar Express got 11 and since The Polar Express only lost to Home Alone when it came to total votes by one, it seems highly likely that, once again only according to this sample of students The Polar Express is the “best” holiday movie in the eyes of teenagers.