The Top 30 Christmas Movie Crushes

We weren't just watching to be filled with Christmas magic.

BY KATE HAKALA

When we tune into TBS and ABC Family marathons each year we're not just watching to rekindle that Christmas magic, a part of us looks forward to another 90-minute visit with our longtime Christmas movie crush. Whether they were animated, claymated, computer-generated, or acted by real live humans, there was something to fill everyone with good cheer. We polled a ton of our friends, acquaintances, exes, crushes, and people we knew would email us back and here are the most popular responses we got back. When it comes to weird Christmas movie crushes, you're never alone.

30. Jack Callaghan (While You Were Sleeping)

With big-eyebrowed Peter Gallagher left in the dust, how could Sandra Bullock not fall for the charming, sly grin of Bill Pullman and his Three Stooges trivia?

29. Marv (Home Alone)

He was a little bit dim-witted, but Marv was the perfect tall foil to Joe Pesci's cursing curmudgeon. He insisted on cool nicknames like "The Wet Bandits", and although most of the film's Rube Goldberg-fueled violence was perpetrated against him, we couldn't help but feel Marv was the lesser of the bad guys. 

28. Amy Stone (The Family Stone)

Rachel McAdams in a normal rom-com is kind of meh, but when she plays against type as a sardonic, arty smart ass with big glasses, she slays.

27. Hermey the Dentist Elf (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

Hermey the would-be dentist, though just a clay figure with a sweep of blonde hair, is a natural crush for anyone who tuned into the classic Rudolph the eight times a year they should have. He's just a lovable misfit going through a career crisis, and can't we all identify with that deep down?

26. Kim (Edward Scissorhands)

Maybe you don't consider this an obvious Christmas film, but that scene where Winona Ryder dances under the snow shavings is one big erotic fantasy complete with a blade-wielding Johnny Depp.

25. Scrooge (The Muppet Christmas Carol)

Listen, if you don't like the Muppets, you probably also don't come equipped with a soul. And in this imaginative retelling of  the Christmas classic, there's nothing hotter than a cold heart warming just in time for the holidays, especially when it belongs to the dashing Michael Caine. (Have you seen him as a young fellow?) A man who can play opposite a slew of felt puppets and still hold a film together is a man we'd like to get familiar with.

24. Bernard the Elf (The Santa Clause)

A crush you can only hold as a kid. If you feel like this choice is too absurd, ask yourself how you could not fall in love with Santa's #2 when he's a very Jewish David Krumholtz? He plays the put-upon dude oh-so-well.

23. Clarice (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

With her epic eyelashes (long before falsies were in vogue), Clarice's quiet, doeful nature was endeering. (Puns!) A woman, even a claymated deer woman, who can see the inner beauty of a man – and go trekking through a blizzard to find him – is worth keeping. Remember when she tells Rudolph, "I think your cute," despite his glaring red flaw of a nose? We like your style, Clarice.

22. Cashier/Elf (Home Alone)

Extremely peripheral characters? Sure. Though these two are minor, itty-bitty characters in the backdrop of this Christmas behemoth, both the authoritative cashier at the grocery store and the sassy elf that Kevin encounters were a favorite of young viewers' fantasies. Young male viewers, in particular.

21. Margot Chester (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation)

Sophisticated, tech-savvy spitfire, Margot Chester (pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is an easy Christmas crush. Getting wrapped up in Clark Griswold's foibles alongside her ultra cool boyfriend, Margot did huffy long before we knew Elaine Benes. It should also be noted that her one-breasted strapless black dress she sports in the film is damn fly.

20. Willie (Bad Santa)

There is something disconcertingly handsome and alluring about Billy Bob Thornton and I will be the first to admit it. The only Santa to make the list, the sex-having, booze-hounding Willie reminds us there's a little naughty and nice in us all.

19. Harry Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life)

So handsome, so war hero. We completely forgot about his older sad-sack brother.

18. Ben Stone (The Family Stone)

Luke Wilson's quiet babeliness is best suited to his more free-spirited characterizations. As a stoned film editor from Berkeley, Wilson is the highlight of the whole operation.

17. Sally Doll (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

For men, the girl-next-door you never had. For women, the I-wish-I-was-her crush. Sally Doll takes care of herself. She needs no creepy-brained mad scientist or even Jack Skellington to put herself back together. 

16. Jack Frost (Jack Frost)

Sometimes a voice actor is all it takes to make a lasting Christmas crush. Nobody was outright attracted to the animated snowman, but the low, gravelly timbre of Michael Keaton's voice is unobjectionably hot.

15. The Grinch (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas)

Some may vote for the cartoon Grinch as their most peculiar Christmas crush, but Jim Carrey's animated features really brought the wickedness out of this furry fiend. The best part about a crush on the Grinch is that you're allowed to still be attracted even when his heart is too sizes too small.

14. Iris Simpkins (The Holiday)

Romantic comedies are an odd terrain for Kate Winslet, and her first venture into contemporary romance was widely panned. But Mrs. Ned Rocknroll is crushable in just about anything, especially when she is paired against a subdued Jack Black.

13. Billy Ray Valentine (Trading Places)

Maybe you didn't even realize Trading Places was a Christmas movie, but it's well established that early '80s Eddie Murphy is a total babe.

12. Bob Wallace (White Christmas)

Bing Crosby's polished masculinity – whether a Broadway performer or a war vet – is no match for us. If you still think that title track is overwrought, just listen to that trademark bass-baritone once more.

11. Jake Wilkinson (I'll Be Home For Christmas)

If JTT wasn't on your mid-'90s crush list, you were missing out on some seriously Disneyfied pretend boyfriend. He's 18 in this film (though still way too young looking for his on-screen girlfriend Jessica Biel) and donning a Santa suit in the middle of the dessert. Enough said.

10. Jamie (Love Actually)

This needs no explanation because, let's face it, it's Colin Firth. The lonely Jamie learns Portuguese (okay, pretty poorly) in order to woo his housekeeper Aurelia. Swoon. Not to mention, the man can wear the hell out of a sweater.

9. Yukon Cornelius (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

He was licking metal hand tools with a seductive glint in his eye long before Miley Cyrus was born. Yukon, as a precursor to what the gays call "bears," has that whole burly, woodsman vibe going for him that makes us just want to get lost in a blizzard with him. Call him clay, but he owned that fiery red mustache twirl more than any hipster ever could.

8. Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis)

At only 21, Judy Garland nailed the straight bangs Victorian look. With the debut of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," she also won herself a slot as a classic Christmas crush. Fun fact: Vincente Minnelli agreed. The two began dating during filming.

7. Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

A man attempting to change a town with one wacky, subversive idea. Jack Skellington is a romantic idealist in a sharp suit. Oh, and he's a skeleton who sings. If you had a thing for lanky goth dudes, it's somehow all very attractive.

6. Mary Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life)

Long before Donna Reed was America's sitcom mother, she was the sexiest librarian of them all. Mary Bailey was steadfast and true to her, at times, petulant husband. We'd lasso the moon for her any day.

5. Clark Griswold (Christmas Vacation) 

Say what you will, Vacation era Chevy Chase is a total fox. Too bad we kind of think the modern Chevy Chase is a turd. In hipster glasses  Clark Griswold is the family man to end all family men. Even if he is fantasizing about the shop girl. 

4. Jovie (Elf)

This scene of Zooey Deschanel singing a lovely jazzy version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside"  in the shower was too sexy for us to care about that awful blonde dye job.

3. Merry (Christmas Vacation)

Tell me you don't rewind Christmas Vacation every year just to watch that red bathing suit slink down at her feet again and again. Merry Christmas, indeed.

2. Karl (Love Actually)

Fact: The movie Love Actually is mainly comprised of incredibly attractive people, but this man is incomprehensibly hot. We were disappointed that he and Laura Linney's will-they-or-won't-they ended in a definitive won't. But good-natured and stupidly sexy Rodrigo Santoro will live on in our Christmas wet dreams for years to come. We would never answer that damn phone call, Karl.

1. John McClane (Die Hard)

Bruce Willis appears to be the overwhelming bedrock of Christmas sexuality for men and women alike. And to think he just wanted to come out to the coast for a few laughs and a little Christmas cheer.

 

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