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The best Christmas movies for interiors lovers
Is there anything that comes close to being as comforting or nostalgic as a Christmas film? The best Christmas movies are where miracles happen (especially on 34th street), log fires roar, prime ministers dance their hearts out and it is always – always – snowing. For those blissful 90ish minutes, it really is a wonderful life. Aside from being the ultimate antidote to a bad day (it's impossible not to feel better after watching a Christmas movie), they're also guaranteed to get you feeling festive.
Watching Christmas classics has become just as much of a Christmas ritual as drinking mulled wine, nibbling on mince pies, browsing Christmas markets and decorating the Christmas tree (to the tunes of Michael Bublé, of course).
Subject to where you register on the Richter scale of festive enthusiasm, you might be planning to start your Christmas movie viewing soon by easing in gently with a Sunday afternoon soft-launch – something cosy like Harry Potter or While You Were Sleeping – before building up to a Christmas Eve viewing crescendo of Elf and Home Alone.
Often our favourite Christmas films are the ones we remember from growing up, and that now fill us with a wave of nostalgia. That nostalgia is hard to beat and that’s why – for the same reason we love a comforting Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers flick – the best and most evocative Christmas movies will rarely be from the last decade. Instead, we like to dive straight into those cosseting 90s interiors and transport ourselves to a simpler time.
Below we've gathered House & Garden's edit of the best Christmas films for homes and interior lovers. They’re not necessarily how you’d want to decorate your own home but the design certainly captures a mood.
So prop your feet up, pop the telly on, and get stuck into these festive favourites (even when it’s not Christmas).
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The best Christmas movies for interior design inspiration
Paramount/Getty Images1/11White Christmas, Amazon Prime
White Christmas is a classic on many levels – most obviously for the music and iconic title song from Bing Crosby – but look closer at the scenes set in fictional Columbia Inn, Vermont and you can’t help but feel charmed. It’s the quintessential mountain lodge vibe of the wooden cladding and gambrel roof, a proper porch and a station wagon outside that really get us and the sweet painted sign for ‘Pine Tree, Vermont’ makes us want to hop straight on a plane. Inside, details like a checkerboard floor, chunky wooden furniture and rustic chandeliers hanging from exposed beams in the barn make the inn seem like a cosy alpine dream.
2/11The Holiday, Netflix
The Holiday is the gold standard of evocative Christmas film interiors and this is one we really would like to try at home. Kate Winslet’s chocolate-box cottage in Surrey (which unfortunately doesn’t exist – it was a set) ticks every box in the search for the quintessential English country cottage. It’s the film equivalent of a hug or a hot chocolate. From the freestanding slipper bath to the open fireplaces in every room and the eccentric mish-mash of comfortable, timeless furniture. Though this is a Nancy Meyers film, so of course we’d expect nothing less than an effortless dream house. Even in the lesser-discussed but equally covetable home of Jude Law, his own study and his daughters’ cosy bedroom den are spaces we’d quite happily live with. If you’d like a deep-dive into the note-perfect interiors of every room in Rosehill Cottage, we’ve already done it.
3/11The Family Stone, Disney Plus
The large Connecticut home where most of The Family Stone takes place is packed to the rafters with lovely little details from the set designers (right down to the carefully chosen fridge magnets) and this granular detail makes us believe it’s a warm, lived-in space where a ‘normal’ family has grown up. A house that’s not over-designed but has probably evolved and aged gracefully over the decades, and isn’t that what we’d all really like? Some details to note are rattan bar stools in the kitchen, wood panelling and deep mustard walls in the sitting room, sliding sash windows, a busy wallpapered hallway and tapered lampshades dotted around on jam-packed shelves. It’s chaotic but it works and although it’s set in the early noughties, the interiors still feel relevant and authentic.
United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo4/11Miracle On 34th Street, Disney Plus
For our Deputy Digital Editor, Christmas is not Christmas without Richard Attenborough's portrayal of Santa Claus in the iconic Miracle On 34th Street. It is the charming tale of a little girl who discovers the magic of Christmas when the real Saint Nick appears in New York as her babysitter and turns her far-too-early cynicism into Christmas wonder. Alongside the heart-wrenching storyline (which sees Santa himself being sued), we see inside some spectacular New York real estate and some very tasteful 1990s decorating, culminating in the dream Christmas present when one character buys the other a vast suburban house.
5/11A Christmas Carol, Disney Plus
There are various versions of A Christmas Carol but whether you’re thinking of the animation with Jim Carrey or even the Muppets; nothing is more evocative of Victorian London at Christmas. The external scenes remind us of walking through the untouched streets of Spitalfields and inside, everything from Bob Cratchit’s sparsely decorated kitchen to the thick curtains around Scrooge’s bed and his meagre supper in a chair by the fire reminds us of how very cold and uncomfortable our homes must have been when we relied on fires for heating and we didn’t have squishy sofas to curl up on. Fun fact that Charles Dickens’s description of snow-covered London in A Christmas Carol is been widely held responsible for creating our obsession with a white Christmas and no self-respecting festive film will be without a dusting of the white stuff, despite the fact that in most of the UK, it almost never snows at Christmas.
6/11Home Alone and Home Alone 2, Disney Plus
The interior scenes in Home Alone and Home Alone 2 are fairly typical of middle class suburban American houses in the 1990s, so there’s little to report there, but did you notice the cohesive colour theme that runs throughout? Home Alone feels especially festive because all of the rooms in Kevin McCallister’s home – even the outfits the main characters wear – are red and green. This dedicated colour combination continues in Home Alone 2, even in the four-poster room where Kevin stays in The Plaza hotel. Other iconic Christmas films have been set in New York (Elf and Miracle on 34th Street, to name a couple) but nothing made us want to spend Christmas morning in Manhattan quite like the lavish hotel suite in Home Alone 2.
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7/11Little Women, Channel 4
The handsome wood-clad Orchard House, as seen in Little Women (not strictly a Christmas film but several festive scenes make it close enough), is quite special in that it did and still does exist. It has been faithfully recreated for both the 1994 and 2019 versions of the film to look just like the New England childhood home of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott, who loosely based the story of the March sisters on her own siblings. Looking to Greta Gerwig’s interpretation specifically, we left the cinema with an urgent desire for a vintage patchwork quilt and a cosy attic space to call our own. It’s not just the enchanting interiors that remind us of a 19th-century version of both John Derian’s Massachusetts house and Amanda Brooks’ Cotswolds home and shop, it’s the charming Christmas decorations that seal the deal. Garlands studded with dried orange slices are hung across every mantel and door, candles on the tree, paper stars hanging from the ceiling – it’s pure magic. And don’t even start us on that Christmas morning feast.
8/11Love Actually, NOW or Amazon Prime
Love it or hate it, Christmas isn’t complete without an annual viewing of Love Actually. This is a Richard Curtis film, so naturally, there’s a selection of covetable interiors throughout the film and even now, they still look like the kind of archetypal London home we always pictured ourselves living in. We only see it in one scene but Sarah’s perfect mezzanine bedroom in what we presume to be a small flat, with its soft lamp lighting, cosy reading chairs, effortless gallery wall and block-print quilt on the bed looks like the perfect place to hide on a rainy weekend. Another highlight was Liam Neeson’s incredibly stylish architect’s house, which appeals just as much today with its casually arranged bookshelves, walls packed full of art and characterful kitchen. Then there’s Andrew Lincoln’s arty studio cum home and Keira Knightley’s charming mews. Even if you’re not into Christmas films, Love Actually is worth a watch for the interiors alone.
9/11Carol (2015), ITV & Amazon Prime
10/11How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Amazon Prime
This is a wild card but bear with us... The 2000 film version of The Grinch is filled with whimsical, over-the-top interiors and architecture (if you can describe Dr Seuss’s fantasy world within a snowflake as having serious architecture). If you look at the soft curves and sculptural shapes of windows, beds, doorframes, even light fittings, they could almost feel like Jean Royère was involved in creating the concept. When Cindy Lou (whose fabulous scalloped and frilled pyjamas look fresh from a Shrimps collection) is in the mailroom, the bold patterned wallpaper and curved sorting shelves wouldn’t look out of place in a scheme for a children’s room. Well, perhaps that’s pushing it but there are some shapes and dream-like ideas in there to encourage us all to think outside the box and be more playful, even if that means a tiny tweak such as swapping a rectangular window for an arched one. Inspiration can be found everywhere, even in Whoville.
11/11National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Amazon Prime
Our Digital Director mentioned that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is her personal favourite: ‘it’s a perfect 1980s suburban interior, not to mention Todd and Margo's house, which is really mega chic’. Now, ignore the Griswolds’ typical American family home (despite its fabulously decorated Christmas tree covered in popcorn garlands, coloured bulbs and silver lametta) and look at the entirely contrasting tribute to ‘80s Modernism next door. The Chesters have a console at the end of their bed with artfully arranged pastel vases, wide tapered lampshades, a minimalist glass dining table, and even a Noguchi paper light that we’d be delighted to own today. Todd and Margo’s cutting edge house doesn’t scream ‘festive’ but it’s a blast from the past to see design-led interiors from the time it was released.
