SURVEY SAYS: What's Your Favorite Holiday Movie?

By asking, What’s your favorite holiday movie?  

Will this be the year that we have a new winner?

This week’s results are HERE

Many of you have been asking, and this week I'm happy to honor those reader requests - and a long-standing NewsDash holiday tradition - by asking readers to name their favorite holiday movie.

Once again, it was "nip and tuck" throughout the day - and once again, it was "It's a Wonderful Life" vying with "A Christmas Story" for top spot.  

And this year the winner is….(drum roll, please)….

" A Christmas Story "!    That's right, the 1983 "classic" managed to supplant the Frank Capra classic at the top of this year's list, but by the narrowest of margins; 17.9% versus 17.3% !   In fact, " It's A Wonderful Life " has topped our annual reader favorite list for the past seven years every year except for this one - and 2006 - when "A Christmas Story" also topped the list (see  SURVEY SAYS: What's Your Favorite Holiday Movie? ).

Coming in third (for the third year in a row, as it turns out) was " Christmas Vacation ", with 13.1% , but it managed to put some distance between itself and the #4 finisher; " White Christmas ", which drew 6.5% of the responses.   That was, however, an improvement from its fifth place finish in 2007…not to mention the previous three years, when it also came in fifth).

" Miracle on 34 ^th Street " (the 1947 version) came in fifth this year, with 5.4% of the vote, slipping back from its 4 ^th place finish (and 8.4%) in 2007, while " How the Grinch Stole Christmas " (the cartoon version) pulled in 4.8% as it vaulted to sixth from an eighth place tie last year.   " A Christmas Carol " (the Alistair Sim version - it was actually called "Scrooge") received 3.6% of the vote, and came in 7 ^th .  

Tied for eighth with 2.4% each were " A Charlie Brown Christmas ", " Elf ," " A Muppet's Christmas Carol ", and " The Polar Express ," while the next grouping - "Die Hard", " Holiday Inn ", and " Love, Actually " each garnered the support of 1.8% .   " Bad Santa " and the George C. Scott version of " A Christmas Caro l" each got the support of 1.2% , while the following got the vote of at least one respondent this week:

• Bells of St. Mary's
• A Christmas Carol (Mr. Magoo version)
• Christmas in Connecticut
• The Christmas Shoes
• Jingle All the Way
• The Ref
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• The Santa Clause
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ( "Ah yes, it is that time of year again where we asked the bearded one to reign terror upon our hostile green interplanetary neighbors. Does anything say Christmas quite like a Martian conquering Santa? I think not," said the submitter).
• Scrooged
• Three Godfathers
• The Toy That Saved Christmas
• The Year Without a Santa Claus

Beyond those, there WERE the write-ins:

• On the 2nd Day of Christmas
• The Holiday (Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Jude Law)
• Bernard & the Genie (now, FINALLY, available on DVD this year)
• A Christmas Carol (Reginald Owen version)  
• Home Alone   (how did I miss that one??)
• Shrek the Halls - ("Mama always said, 'Christmas ain't Christmas until somebody cries!'")
• The Miser Brothers Christmas - new on ABC Family/Sequel to The Year Without A Santa Claus   Dodgeball ("My sons and I saw it on Christmas the year it came out, and now it's an annual tradition to rent Dodgeball," said the submitter).
• The Family Stone

I did appreciate how everyone really played by "the rules" this year, by the way - and, while that may have cut down on the volume of comments, we still got some fun verbatrims:

"How can you make me choose just ONE movie? There are so many wonderful movies. It all depends on what I want when I start watching; to be moved, to be amused, to be entertained. Whatever the genre, I like my Christmas movies to celebrate the power of family and relationship and giving."

"It's not enough for me to say I like 'A Christmas Story' best, because what I really like is the '24 Hours of A Christmas Story'."

"Die Hard as a Christmas movie is one of your funnier moments of the year. (There have been many. Thank you!;)"

But this week's Editor's Choice goes to the reader who said, "If you watch any movie other than "A Christmas story", you'll put your eye out!!"

Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey!