We can't all be Jimmy Stewart, and not all movies released in December can be classics, even if they're called The Perfect Holiday. I would rather cozy up on ye olde sofa, light up the menorah, spike some eggnog and take in one of these delights. And by "delights" I mean action movies. (Hi, Bruce Willis!)

Universal Studios

1. Love Actually:  Romantic yearnings, loneliness, infidelity, rejection and indecision are all things I associate with the holidays. And Richard Curtis spins eight evergreen stories about them, the highlight being Bill Nighy's interpretation of "Love Is All Around." The cast is amazing, and the way the stories converge is uncontrived, a miracle that would make Santa purr.

2. The Family Stone:  Hunt down this dysfunctional family dramedy on cable and you won't be sorry. Sarah Jessica Parker plays the uptight girlfriend who's dismayed when her boyfriend's family (Dermot Mulroney) doesn't like her. Luke Wilson is relaxed—he looks like a Christmas present. Diane Keaton is majestically disappointed. Rachel McAdams is brilliantly vicious. The only family scarier than your own is your boyfriend's, amen.

Paramount / Zuma Press

3. Trading Places:  Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) steps into the old, white wealthy world in winter, just as Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) is booted from his high thread-count comfort zone. Ah, but Christmas is universal, so everyone gets something. Louis gets to see Jamie Lee Curtis' rack. And Billy Ray smokes a joint at the Duke & Duke Xmas party. Awesome movie all around, and this is the best time of year to watch it.

4. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas:  I could never get enough of Jim Henson's warm and fuzzy puppet story. Poverty, country music and love-struck, noble-hearted otters make for wonderful seasonal companions. This movie doesn't get enough love, which is a shame, as the town of Frogtown Hollow might just be the spiritual home of Christmas.

20th Century Fox/The Kobal Collection

5. Home Alone:  Even if Macaulay Culkin is eerily cartoonish and eloquent, you have to admit that Home Alone is a big winner. Concept alone is brilliant: A kid's family takes off for France, leaves him alone at Christmas. Throw in some only-in-the-movies unthreatening, idiotic robbers (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) and you have yourself an idyllic set-up for safe suspense. Chris Columbus and John Hughes' cheese is the good kind.

20th Century Fox

5. Die Hard:  Yep, that Die Hard. It's a superb Bruce Willis action flick—that we all know. What we forget is that it's also the story of a man trying to save his family at Christmas. Bonus: We get to hear Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" and classics like "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" Mainly, Die Hard is what Christmas is all about: maintaining your sarcasm even when someone's pointing a loaded gun at you.

Warner Bros. Pictures

6. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation:  If Chevy Chase's residuals ever run out, he can market himself as a sort of rent-a-Santa/father figure who will come to your family's home, bring in a tree that is way too big, go psycho with the house decorations, have oversensitive but amusing hissy fits, make your kooky relatives feel unwanted, find a way to mention the Jelly of the Month Club and then, shucks yes, make it aaaall better.

MGM

7. A Christmas Story:  The Red Ryder BB gun, the one-legged fishnet lamp, the classic voiceover from Jean Shepherd and the timeless caveat, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." It goes without saying that this is a classic American artifact, an ode to the '40s, produced in the '80s, as bright and huggable as little Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) himself.

9. Funny Farm:  It's all about the third act, wherein the soon to be divorced Mr. and Mrs. Farmer (Chevy Chase and Madolyn Smith Osborne) are desperate to sell their home in the town of Red Bud. Red Bud, of course, is full of anger-mongering freaks. So the Farmers promise to pay the townsfolk $50 apiece if they will pretend to be like people from a Norman Rockwell painting when the prospective buyers visit. It's comforting, because the Red Budians make a Christmas so lovely, so Rockwellian that it could only be the product of a scam.

10. You Tell Me!  You may think, What is wrong with you, girl? How did you omit Bad Santa? It's cool. Just take all that seasonal rage to the Comments section. Ho, ho, ho!