Why Nothing Beats Elf at Christmas

First an admission: I grew up on Home Alone. I was nine when it was released and it must be the first film that I remember having to see more than once at the cinema. It should be my definitive Christmas movie. I wanted nothing more than to be Macaulay Culkin and run around a mansion screaming and fighting off burglars in barbaric ways. But then, in 2003, when I was still just a little boy of 22 years old, I saw Elf.

As a wise elf/man once said, ‘Smiling’s my favourite!’ and there’s nothing that can put a bigger smile on my face at Christmas than Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf. The enthusiasm that the green-suited man-child brings to Christmas preparations is sure to thaw even the iciest humbug’s heart. 

When Buddy, the man raised by elves in the North Pole, arrives in New York after travelling ‘through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then… through the Lincoln Tunnel’, he is searching for his naughty-list-dwelling father, played with grouchy perfection by James Caan. It's up to Buddy to bring some cheer into this miserable New Yorker's life and maybe, just maybe, rescue him from the naughty list.

Despite Santa’s warnings about the city, Buddy’s Christmas spirit can never be tainted. Even though he encounters an ‘angry elf’ in the form of Peter Dinklage’s no-nonsense children’s author and a fake Santa who sits on a ‘throne of lies’ and smells like ‘beef and cheese’, Buddy can still manage to spread infinite Christmas cheer. Who can possibly resist Buddy’s proud and loud exclamation at the arrival of Santa? ‘SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!’

Buddy’s so cool, so full of joy, and so much loved in my house that I even my named my dog after him! And because you need a picture of him, here he is.