SEASONAL · HOLIDAY 2026
The holidays, as festive as you like
Twenty-four picks for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the long winter break across movies, TV, anime, games, books and music, sorted by how much tinsel you want, with a plan for every kind of holiday.
Most holiday recommendations are the same list: the twenty most Christmassy films ever made, ranked. That is useful for about a week. The season actually runs from the Thanksgiving weekend to New Year's Day, and it is full of very different evenings: a table of relatives who agree on nothing, a houseful of children with days off school, a quiet night when you have had enough tinsel for one year, a long trip home.
So this hub is sorted by the kind of time you have. There are four shelves, and each has one pick in every format OmniTrackr tracks: a film, a series, an anime, a game, a book and an album. Every pick has a festive level from one to five, so you can tell at a glance whether it is wall-to-wall Christmas or simply cold outside, along with a note on how much time it takes and a caveat that lists what is actually in it.
Not everybody celebrates Christmas, and plenty of people who do are tired of it by the twentieth of December. The Out in the cold shelf has almost no holiday in it, just snow, long nights and good company. Everything else leans festive to some degree, and the scale tells you how far.
THE FESTIVE SCALE
How festive is it?
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
Snow, cold or long nights, and no holiday to speak of. Safe for anyone who has had enough.Festive 2 of 5 · A hint of the season
A holiday episode or a festive scene or two, with the season in the background.Festive 3 of 5 · Holiday setting
Set over Thanksgiving or Christmas. The season shapes the story without taking it over.Festive 4 of 5 · Properly festive
The holiday is the heart of it: lights, gifts, a big dinner, a family getting through it.Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
As Christmassy as it gets. Best saved for December, or for people who start early on purpose.
Save any pick to a list as you go, no account needed. Your list moves into a free library when you sign up.
FESTIVE 1 TO 3
Around the table
For Thanksgiving and the long weekend with family.
For a lot of people in the United States, the Thanksgiving weekend is where the season starts, and it has its own kind of evening: full, a bit tired, with three generations in one room trying to agree on something to put on. Most of these six are about a meal or a trip home, and none of them has much tinsel.
Most of them sit at one to three on the festive scale, so they work just as well for a Canadian Thanksgiving in October, a Friendsgiving, or any long dinner with people you love and occasionally argue with.
Movie · 1987 · John Hughes
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Festive 3 of 5 · Holiday setting
One film, about an hour and a half
Neal Page, a tightly wound advertising executive played by Steve Martin, only wants to get from New York to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Every flight, train and rental car fails him, and he keeps ending up beside Del Griffith, a talkative shower-curtain-ring salesman played by John Candy. It is very funny, and the last few minutes are kinder than the rest of the film prepares you for.
The perfect film for the night before you travel, or the night you arrive and need to laugh about the journey. The shared motel room is the scene everyone quotes.
Before you start: Rated R in the US, almost entirely for one long, very sweary rant at a car rental desk. Otherwise mild.
TV show · 1994 · David Crane and Marta Kauffman
Friends
Festive 2 of 5 · A hint of the season
Ten seasons; the Thanksgiving episodes stand alone
Friends made a Thanksgiving episode almost every year it was on the air, and together they work as a small festival of their own: a dinner that goes wrong in every possible way, a game of touch football that gets far too competitive, a trifle with a layer of beef in it, and a flashback episode where everyone confesses their worst Thanksgiving.
Start with The One with All the Thanksgivings in the fifth season, then The One Where Ross Got High in the sixth. Neither needs much context, which makes them good for a room of relatives.
Before you start: Some jokes have aged badly, especially about weight and sexuality, and the flashback episode leans on them. It is a long series if you get pulled back in.
Anime · 2016 · TMS Entertainment
Sweetness and Lightning
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
Twelve episodes, each built around one meal
Kohei Inuzuka is a high-school maths teacher raising his small daughter Tsumugi alone after his wife's death, and he cannot cook. When one of his students offers the kitchen of her mother's restaurant, the three of them start making proper dinners together, one dish an episode. It is a show about grief and food, and about a father learning that a home needs people eating at the same table.
Watch an episode before you cook and you may end up making the same dish; the recipes are simple and real. One or two episodes at a time suits it best.
Before you start: The early episodes deal openly with a parent's death and a child's grief. Otherwise suitable for all ages.
Video game · 2018 · Ghost Town Games
Overcooked! 2
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
Short levels, a few minutes each
Up to four players run a kitchen together, chopping, cooking, plating and washing up against the clock while the kitchen itself refuses to sit still: counters slide apart, floors move and things catch fire. It only works if everyone talks, which is why it is the best game for a family that has just eaten together and still has energy to spend.
Pair a patient adult with a younger player. Running the sink is a good job for a guest who has never played a video game, and they will be cheered as loudly as anyone.
Before you start: Can turn loud and competitive, and the later levels are hard. It plays online too, but it is best on one sofa.
Book · 1868 · Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
Festive 3 of 5 · Holiday setting
A long novel, best spread over the season
It opens with Jo complaining that Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, and within a few pages the four March sisters have given their Christmas breakfast to a poorer family down the road. Alcott follows Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy through a few years of growing up in Massachusetts during the Civil War, and of all the books here it suits a season with relatives best: the sisters squabble, borrow from each other and make up by the end of the chapter.
Read the first part over Thanksgiving and save the end for the slow days after Christmas. If you know one of the films, the novel's middle chapters, which the films tend to rush, are the best part.
Before you start: Beth's illness is famously sad. Some of the moralising feels old-fashioned, and editions differ: some include the sequel, Good Wives, and some stop halfway, so check what you have.
Album · 1978 · The Band
The Last Waltz
Festive 2 of 5 · A hint of the season
A long live album, over two hours
On Thanksgiving Day 1976, The Band played their farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and the audience was served a turkey dinner before the show. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Neil Young were among the guests who joined them on stage. The album is loud and loose and sounds like a party, which suits a table where the dishes are going round.
Put it on as people arrive and let it run through the meal. Martin Scorsese's film of the night is a separate thing, and well worth a look later in the weekend.
Before you start: Loose and very much a concert recording, with long songs and a few rough edges. Nothing to worry about for content.
FESTIVE 4 TO 5
Deck the halls
For when you want all the Christmas at once.
Some people wait until December. Others put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and play the same album until New Year. This shelf is for the second group, and for the first group once December arrives: lights, snow, Santa, carols and a happy ending in every format.
Every pick here sits at four or five on the festive scale. We mixed a few classics everyone knows with a few that tend to get forgotten, and kept each one because it holds up on the second, third and tenth visit.
Movie · 2003 · Jon Favreau
Elf
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
One film, about an hour and a half
Buddy was raised at the North Pole by elves. At thirty, a good deal taller than everyone around him, he learns that he is human and travels to New York to find his real father, a grumpy publisher of children's books who is on Santa's naughty list. Will Ferrell plays Buddy with complete sincerity. Buddy never realises he is in a comedy, and the film is funnier for it.
A good way to open the season with a mixed-age group. The stop-motion animals at the North Pole are a fond nod to the television specials of the 1960s.
Before you start: Mild rude humour, including one belch that goes on for a very long time. Suitable for most ages.
TV show · 2020 · Joe Tracz
Dash & Lily
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
Eight half-hour episodes, two evenings
In the weeks before Christmas in New York, Lily, who adores the holidays, leaves a red notebook of dares on a shelf at the Strand bookstore, and Dash, who can't stand them, picks it up. They write back and forth across the city without meeting. Based on Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's novel Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, it is a short, sweet romance with New York at its most twinkly.
Eight short episodes make two perfect evenings in December. If you enjoy it, the novel spends more time on each of the dares.
Before you start: There is only one season, but it ends on a satisfying note. Teenage romance and mild language; fine for teens and up.
Anime · 2003 · Satoshi Kon
Tokyo Godfathers
Festive 4 of 5 · Properly festive
One film, about an hour and a half
On Christmas Eve in Tokyo, three homeless people (a middle-aged drinker with a past, a former drag queen and a teenage runaway) find a baby abandoned among the rubbish and decide to return her to her parents themselves. What follows is a chain of unlikely coincidences, the kind a Christmas miracle story needs, happening to people the rest of the city walks past.
A good film for adults who want something festive that isn't sugary. Satoshi Kon's other films are much stranger; this is his warmest and the easiest place to start.
Before you start: Some violence, heavy drinking and homelessness shown plainly, and dated jokes about Hana, a trans woman, though the film treats her with real affection. Not for young children.
Video game · 2020 · Nintendo
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Festive 4 of 5 · Properly festive
Ten minutes a day, all season long
You move to a desert island and slowly turn it into a village of friendly animal neighbours, in real time and on the real calendar. In December the island changes with you: festive decorations and recipes arrive, trees drop ornaments when you shake them, and Toy Day comes on Christmas Eve. Because it runs on your clock, it is the one pick here you can visit for a few minutes every day of the season.
Start in November so your island is settled by December. Visiting a friend's or relative's island is part of the fun, and an easy way to keep in touch with someone far away.
Before you start: Nintendo Switch only, and visiting islands over the internet needs a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership. Very slow by design.
Book · 1843 · Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
A short novel, an evening or two
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser who hates Christmas, is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his old business partner and then by three spirits who show him his past, his present and the future he is heading for. It has been adapted so often that most people know the plot without having read it. Read it anyway. Dickens is funnier and darker than nearly every adaptation, and the book is short enough to finish in one evening.
Read it aloud over five nights. It is divided into five short parts that Dickens called staves, and he performed it to audiences himself for years. The Muppet version on the Everyone on the sofa shelf makes a surprisingly faithful companion.
Before you start: Victorian prose takes a few pages to settle into. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is genuinely grim, and Tiny Tim's illness may upset younger listeners.
Album · 1994 · Mariah Carey
Merry Christmas
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
Ten songs, under an hour
Most people know one song from this album, and it has climbed back to the top of the charts most Decembers in recent years. The rest is better than its reputation: big gospel-inflected carols, a 1960s-style wall of sound and a singer at the height of her powers, clearly having a wonderful time. Nobody on it is being ironic about Christmas.
Save All I Want for Christmas Is You for when the room needs lifting. O Holy Night and Jesus Oh What a Wonderful Child show what the album is really about.
Before you start: Several of the carols are religious. Unashamedly loud and sentimental, which is either the point or the problem.
FESTIVE 1 TO 2
Out in the cold
Winter without the holidays.
Not everybody celebrates Christmas, and even people who love it can reach the middle of December and want something else. These six have snow, ice, long nights and remote places, and almost no holiday at all. They are for the part of the season when you want the cold outside and nothing to decorate.
Everything here sits at one or two on the festive scale. Several are also good company for the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, when nobody is quite sure what day it is.
Movie · 1996 · Joel and Ethan Coen
Fargo
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
One film, about an hour and a half
A Minneapolis car salesman, badly in debt, hires two criminals to kidnap his own wife so that her wealthy father will pay the ransom. Nothing goes to plan. The case lands with Marge Gunderson, a heavily pregnant police chief from Brainerd who is polite to everyone and much sharper than any of them notice. The snow is so white in places that it swallows the horizon.
Watch it on a cold night with something hot to drink. Frances McDormand won an Oscar for Marge, and her scenes at home with her husband, Norm, are the warmest in the film.
Before you start: Sudden, bloody violence, including a famous scene with a woodchipper, and plenty of swearing. Not a family film.
TV show · 1990 · Joshua Brand and John Falsey
Northern Exposure
Festive 2 of 5 · A hint of the season
Six seasons; the first has only eight episodes
Joel Fleischman, a New York doctor whose medical school was paid for by the state of Alaska, is sent to work off the debt in Cicely, a tiny town of philosophers, a former astronaut and the occasional moose. Not much happens in most episodes. People argue about books, the town DJ reads philosophy on air and the winter lasts for months, which makes it good company on dark evenings.
Start at the beginning, and don't skip Chris's morning broadcasts. They are the heart of the show.
Before you start: Hard to find on streaming in some regions, and some home releases replaced the original music for licensing reasons. A few dated attitudes.
Anime · 2018 · Madhouse
A Place Further than the Universe
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
Thirteen episodes
Mari is a high-school student who keeps meaning to do something bold and never does. Then she meets Shirase, who has been saving for years to go to Antarctica, where her mother disappeared on an expedition. With two more friends they talk their way onto a civilian research trip. It is funny the whole way there, and the episodes in Antarctica hit hard.
The early episodes are about getting there, and the ship's crossing of the Southern Ocean is a highlight. Keep tissues near for the last two episodes.
Before you start: Grief is central to the story. Otherwise there is very little to worry about; good for teens and up.
Video game · 2018 · Maddy Makes Games
Celeste
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
A game of about eight to ten hours
Madeline climbs Celeste Mountain, a snowy and slightly haunted peak, while dealing with an anxiety that takes the shape of a second version of herself. The jumping is precise and difficult, but the game is generous: you restart instantly after every fall, and nothing punishes you for trying again. It is a game about not giving up that never makes you feel stupid for failing.
If a chapter gets too hard, Assist Mode lets you slow the game down or skip the hardest parts, without judgement. The strawberries are entirely optional.
Before you start: Hard platforming and many deaths are part of the design. Deals openly with anxiety and panic attacks.
Book · 2017 · Katherine Arden
The Bear and the Nightingale
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
A novel of around three hundred pages
Vasya grows up in a village at the edge of a great forest in medieval Russia, where winter takes up most of the year and the family sleeps on top of the stove to keep warm. She can see the household spirits her neighbours leave bread for, and when a new priest arrives and forbids the old offerings, the spirits weaken and something hungry stirs in the woods. It reads like a fairy tale told beside the fire, with frost on every page.
Read it in the darkest weeks of the year. The first third is slow and folkloric; once Vasya meets the frost king Morozko, the pace picks up and rarely lets go.
Before you start: The first of a trilogy, though it ends well on its own. Some frightening creatures, deaths, religious conflict and a young woman pushed towards marriage or a convent.
Album · 2001 · Björk
Vespertine
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
Twelve songs, just under an hour
Björk made this album as a record for staying indoors in winter, and it sounds like it: music boxes, harp, a choir from Greenland and tiny, crackling beats built partly from small household sounds, down to footsteps in snow. It is much softer than her other records. Play it at low volume in a warm room while the weather does its worst outside.
Listen with headphones the first time so you can hear the small sounds. Hidden Place and Pagan Poetry are good ways in before playing it from start to finish.
Before you start: Several songs are frankly sensual, and Cocoon in particular is very intimate. Otherwise nothing to warn about.
FESTIVE 1 TO 5
Everyone on the sofa
For the whole family, all ages at once.
Holiday breaks are the one time many families spend days in the same room, and finding something that a six-year-old, a teenager and a grandparent will all enjoy is a real challenge. These six were picked to survive that room. None of them is sickly, and each has something in it for the adults.
Festive levels vary across the shelf. Each caveat says exactly what might be too much for younger children, and anything with a sad stretch is flagged.
Movie · 1992 · Brian Henson
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
One film, about an hour and a half
Michael Caine plays Scrooge completely straight, as if he were in a serious period drama, while Kermit plays Bob Cratchit and Gonzo, as Charles Dickens himself, narrates with Rizzo the Rat. Children get the Muppets and the slapstick. Adults get an adaptation that keeps a surprising amount of Dickens's own words.
Pair it with the book on the Deck the halls shelf. Some versions cut the song When Love Is Gone; look for one that includes it if you want the whole film.
Before you start: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come can frighten small children, and Tiny Tim's fate is sad for a scene or two. Otherwise suitable for all ages.
TV show · 2018 · Joe Brumm
Bluey
Festive 2 of 5 · A hint of the season
Most episodes run seven minutes and stand alone
Bluey is a six-year-old Blue Heeler puppy in Brisbane who turns everything into a game, with her little sister Bingo and her parents, Bandit and Chilli, who play along. The episodes are short and funny, and a surprising number of them end with a lump in your throat. Adults watching may come away with a few new games. The Christmas episodes, Verandah Santa and the longer Christmas Swim, are favourites.
Watch with children and see who laughs more. Verandah Santa is a very Australian Christmas, with heat, cousins and a family game that gets out of hand.
Before you start: A few episodes touch on growing up and loss, and some are known for making parents cry. Suitable for all ages.
Anime · 2012 · Mamoru Hosoda
Wolf Children
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
One film, about two hours
Hana, a university student in Tokyo, falls in love with a man who can turn into a wolf. After he dies, she moves to the countryside to raise their two children, Yuki and Ame, who are not sure whether they want to grow up human or wolf. Its best-loved scene is a joyful run through fresh snow, and the film is about a mother letting each child choose a different life.
Best for children around ten and up, with adults alongside. Leave time afterwards for questions about growing up and leaving home.
Before you start: The father's death and a dangerous storm are upsetting, and parents may find the ending harder than their children do. Close to two hours long.
Video game · 2023 · Nintendo
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Festive 1 of 5 · Just wintry
A game of around twelve hours, in short levels
Up to four players run and jump through the Flower Kingdom together, and when someone touches a Wonder Flower the level turns strange: pipes start crawling like caterpillars, the music changes and the whole stage rearranges itself. Players of different ages can share it, because nobody gets left behind for long.
Give younger or newer players Yoshi or Nabbit, who take no damage from enemies. Experienced players can race ahead and come back to help.
Before you start: Nintendo Switch only. Up to four players on one console; online play is more limited. No content concerns.
Book · 1985 · Chris Van Allsburg
The Polar Express
Festive 5 of 5 · Full tinsel
A picture book, about ten minutes aloud
On Christmas Eve a boy who is starting to doubt Santa hears a train stop outside his house, steaming in the snow, and climbs aboard for the North Pole. Van Allsburg's dark, glowing pictures won the Caldecott Medal, and the story ends with a sleigh bell that only believers can hear. It is short enough to read every year and strange enough that older readers keep noticing new things.
Read it aloud on Christmas Eve with the lights low. A small bell on a string makes a good prop for the last page.
Before you start: None for content. The pictures are soft and shadowy, which a few very young children find a little spooky.
Album · 1965 · Vince Guaraldi Trio
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Festive 4 of 5 · Properly festive
A short album, well under an hour
Pianist Vince Guaraldi's jazz trio wrote and played the music for the 1965 Peanuts television special, and the soundtrack has become one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time. Christmas Time Is Here, sung by a children's choir, is wistful in a way few carols are, and Linus and Lucy will get even reluctant relatives moving.
Put it on while you decorate or wrap presents, then watch the special itself, which is only about twenty-five minutes long.
Before you start: None. Some editions add bonus tracks and alternate takes, so the running order varies.
PLAN YOUR BREAK
Five kinds of holiday break
Thanksgiving weekend with family
Planes, Trains and Automobiles on Wednesday night for whoever has made it home. The Last Waltz through dinner on Thursday, and Overcooked! 2 once the plates are cleared and someone needs to work off the pie. Keep the Friends Thanksgiving episodes for Friday, when nobody wants to leave the sofa.
Christmas Eve with children
The Polar Express read aloud after dinner, then The Muppet Christmas Carol, or a couple of Bluey's Christmas episodes for the youngest. A Charlie Brown Christmas while the adults wrap, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder the next day for everyone who still has energy.
You've had enough of Christmas
Fargo for a cold, funny and entirely unfestive night. Then a long stretch of Northern Exposure or A Place Further than the Universe, Celeste when you want a challenge, and Vespertine when the house has finally gone quiet.
All in from the first of December
Elf to open the month, Dash & Lily across the first weekend and A Christmas Carol read one stave a night. Animal Crossing for a few minutes every day, Mariah Carey while the tree goes up, and Tokyo Godfathers on Christmas Eve once the children are asleep.
A long journey home
Download Sweetness and Lightning and Tokyo Godfathers before you leave, and pack Little Women or The Bear and the Nightingale for the waiting room. Save Planes, Trains and Automobiles for the night you arrive, when you can finally laugh about the trip.
Questions
What are good Thanksgiving movies and shows?
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is the classic Thanksgiving film: Steve Martin and John Candy trying to get to Chicago in time for dinner. For television, Friends made a Thanksgiving episode almost every season; start with The One with All the Thanksgivings. Both are on the Around the table shelf, along with picks in every other format.
What can I watch over the holidays if I don't celebrate Christmas?
The Out in the cold shelf has almost no holiday in it: Fargo, Northern Exposure, A Place Further than the Universe, Celeste, The Bear and the Nightingale and Björk's Vespertine. Every pick there is one or two on our festive scale, so you get the winter without the decorations.
What can the whole family enjoy together at Christmas?
The Everyone on the sofa shelf is chosen for mixed ages. The Muppet Christmas Carol and Bluey work for nearly everyone, Super Mario Bros. Wonder lets up to four people play at once with easier characters for younger players, and The Polar Express takes about ten minutes to read aloud. Each caveat says what might be too much for small children.
How does the festive scale work?
It runs from one, just wintry with no holiday to speak of, to five, full tinsel. We set each level ourselves by asking how much of the work is about the season. A story that only happens to take place at Christmas scores lower than one about Christmas. It is not an age rating; the caveats cover content.
Are there holiday games to play with family far away?
Animal Crossing: New Horizons lets friends and family visit each other's islands over the internet with a Nintendo Switch Online membership, which is a lovely way to swap presents across a distance. Overcooked! 2 also supports online play, though it is at its best on one sofa.
When does the holiday hub appear on my dashboard?
Members see the hub on their dashboard from the third of November until the end of December. The page itself stays open all year, and anything you add to your library from it stays there.
How we chose
Prepared by OmniTrackr and reviewed by the site owner before publishing. We started from the kinds of time people actually have between Thanksgiving and New Year (a big family meal, a houseful of children, a quiet evening alone, a long trip) and chose one pick per format for each. We wanted a spread of tone, age range and length, so this is not a ranking of the best Christmas titles. Some famous favourites are missing because we preferred picks that hold up to repeat visits or suit more than one kind of household.
Festive levels and caveats are our own judgements, checked against the works themselves and public sources. They are not official ratings. Runtimes, editions, episode counts and platforms vary by region. Every link goes to an OmniTrackr title page and none go to shops. Nothing here is sponsored.
First published October 22, 2026. Checked October 22, 2026. Suggest a pick or send a correction · Editorial standards