I went on an insane movie-watching binge over Thanksgiving weekend (it really should have been a movie-watching and scarf-knitting binge so I could get a jump on Christmas gifts, but ah well, once in a while a girl's gotta lay around and do nothing more challenging than locate the remote or that leftover piece of pecan pie. I swear mental health days can dissolve several months worth of stress.), and ended up watching a good chunk of Home Alone at one point when I discovered it on TV before venturing out to actually do something social. As far as Christmas movies, it's not one of my absolute favorites - I've seen it or parts of it at least a dozen times, cause it's kinda ubiquitous this time of year, but I never intentionally think - "I'm going to watch Home Alone now."
But the best thing about the movie, next to the insane cuteness of tiny Macaulay Culkin, has to be the prominent placement of The Drifters doing "White Christmas." In my opinion, it is THE best version of "White Christmas" that will ever exist, and the fact that it's complemented by little Kevin singing into a comb - well, that's just the icing on the cake.
Recorded in 1954, it's hard to believe The Drifters' take on the Christmas standard (which Irving Berlin wrote poolside at the Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona in 1940) wasn't very widely played until it appeared in Home Alone. While it hit #2 on the Billboard R&B chart and was the first Drifters hit to crack the Hot 100, it was only really played on R&B radio stations for decades, until the littlest aftershave-stung McCallister gave its popularity a massive boost in 1990.
The Drifters - "White Christmas"
Also, I'm a total sucker for a reindeer singing earnestly:
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