When thinking of Christmas people think of many things like presents, cookies, or the lengthy break you receive from school for the holiday. Among all of those traditions, a heavy favorite for some is Christmas movies. While there are many and the best one may cause heated debates it is no debate that the movie Elf is an all-time classic Sophomore, Ethan Wilder, stated “It has always been my favorite Christmas movie since I was little”.
Elf begins with Santa delivering presents to an orphanage and an orphan. by the name of Buddy crawls into Santa’s sack. Buddy is taken from the orphanage back to the North Pole. Since Buddy was a normal human compared to all the other elves in the North Pole it was hard for Buddy to fit in, considering he was much bigger than all the other elves and he didn’t have natural toy-making abilities like the other elves. While Buddy is doing his normal day-to-day activities he ends up having a conversation about his biological father, Walter Hobbs. Buddy is informed that his father doesn’t know of his existence and his father is on Santa’s Naughty list, because he doesn’t have any Christmas spirit. Being told this information Buddy makes it his mission to travel to New York and find his father at his place of work in the Empire State Building to tell him of his existence and attempt to fill him with Christmas spirit, which is where the main part of the movie begins.
When people think of Elf, their minds can go to places because the movie has many different memorable moments because Buddy is such an “all over the place” character to follow creating many different scenes that people will remember. But one concept in the movie that really sticks out is Buddy’s wild food combinations that happen at about every meal. All of Buddy’s food is based around the elves four main food groups. Those foods were candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup. Buddy took these 4 food groups into everyday food such as spaghetti like in the iconic scene when he covered a plate of pasta in maple syrup, chocolate syrup, M&Ms, marshmallows, and a Pop Tart. While Buddy’s wild concoctions throughout Elf have built him quite the reputation, making people think of how nasty or delicious it might be to eat. Or as every parent watching the movie thinks about how expensive it must be to take Buddy to the dentist there is no doubt his food creations are iconic.
While the normal things in the North Pole for Buddy may seem weird or outlandish during his trip to New York City these normalities can lead to pretty cool moments during the movie for Buddy as well. One scene that comes to mind is Buddy’s snowball fight scene. The scene comes to play when Buddy goes to pick up his little brother Michael from school. Michael tries to walk away from Buddy because Buddy is embarrassing to him. Buddy eventually catches up to Michael when a snowball from a random kid strikes Buddy in the fight causing Buddy to state one of the most iconic lines from the movie, “Son of a Nutcracker”. As the 2 brothers run to take cover from a barrage of snowballs they are quick to think of fighting back as soon as they take cover. While they prepare snowballs, Michael only manages to make 1 snowball as Buddy manages to make a whole pile and an arm full. That’s not even the most impressive part of the scene as Buddy is able to throw the snowballs seemingly at the speed of light.
After 20 years of the movie, Elf, has solidified itself as an all-time classic Christmas movie. It has many parts that when they’re all put together really make a great movie. One of the things that really makes Elf stick out is the amazing cast that includes an all-time great actor in Will Ferrell to play Buddy. Another thing is hat they were able to include 2 of the best settings for a Christmas movie in the North its use of decorations throughout the city and the natural cold and snowy environment to capture the Christmas feeling.
As a child, Christmas time had many enjoyments like an Elf on the Shelf or the presents I’ll receive Christmas morning. But a tradition I loved without fail was watching the movie Elf. Some of my earliest memories of movies I watched was the movie Elf. Whenever Christmas time came around one of my first questions was if we could watch Elf. I always loved Elf because of the goofy and wild nature of Buddy because he reminded me of myself. Buddy gave me ideas that my parents didn’t enjoy, such as his wild food combinations which they knew were bound to rack up a massive dentist bill if they let me eat them.
Even after being out for 20 years, Elf is still going strong. It’s a staple in households around Christmas time and the tradition of Elf will live on. Since the holiday season has started, it’s time to either find it on whatever streaming service you have or find it as a DVD and go watch Elf.
