5 Classic Christmas Movies Filmed in Small US Towns
The Halloween decorations have just been taken down, and already families across the nation are rummaging through the garage for those string lights and plastic reindeer.
Right on cue, TV stations and streaming services are pushing seasonal classics like Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, and Prancer at us. Before we know it, we'll be settling down to watch Cousin Eddie spoil Clark's perfect all-american Christmas.
Whatever Christmas classic you settle on (c'mon, we know you're going to watch them all!), they share something other than just a the seasonal backdrop: each was filmed in a small town. Like Kevin McCallister's house in Home Alone which is located on Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, Illinois or that Clark Griswold's saucer sled in Christmas Vacation went down Peak 8 in Breckenridge, Colorado.
So put on a tasteless festive sweater that hopefully doesn't jingle when you walk, grab some eggnog, and get cozy as we share a few of our favorite small American towns where classic Christmas movies were filmed.
Winnetka, Illinois: Home Alone (1990)
More than 100 people a day stop on Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka during the holiday season to photograph the house at number 671. This brick Georgian-style home was built in 1921 and served as the McCallister residence in Home Alone.
Located on Lake Michigan north of Chicago, Winnetka is where director Chris Columbus and writer-producer John Hughes shot most of the film between February 14 and late May 1990. It opened on November 16 that year and went on to make $476.7 million worldwide.
The house is a private home, and only the exteriors were filmed here, so viewing is from the sidewalk only. A two-story replica of the interior was built inside the gym of the closed New Trier West High School in neighboring Northfield, using its drained swimming pool for the flooded-basement set, and the basketball court for the airplane cabin. The house sold for $5.5 million in January 2025, $250,000 above its asking price.
Several other locations are within a short drive. Hubbard Woods Park on Green Bay Road is where the production built the ice rink Kevin runs past, and the Grand Food Center, also on Green Bay Road, is the grocery store where he does his own shopping.
The night scene at Santa's village was shot in front of Winnetka Village Hall at Chestnut Court. The church where Kevin hides in the nativity scene is Trinity United Methodist Church in nearby Wilmette.
If you're here in early December, the village tree lighting at Dwyer Park on Birch Street brings Santa in on a fire truck.
Three Oaks, Michigan: Prancer (1989)
Three Oaks, Michigan, got the part in Prancer because it had one main street and a single stoplight. Director John D. Hancock, whose family owned a fruit farm across the state line near La Porte, Indiana, originally scouted Vermont and Canada with producer Raffaella De Laurentiis before settling on the village he had visited with his grandfather as a boy.
The script's fictional town of Fall River was renamed Three Oaks once street scenes were shot here in February 1989, and the film, with Sam Elliott as a widowed apple farmer and Rebecca Harrell as the daughter who nurses an injured reindeer, opened on November 17 that year.
The Region of Three Oaks Museum publishes a self-guided tour of the locations, and most are on Elm Street.
The Christmas tree lot where the butcher caged Prancer for display was next to Drier's Meat Market at 14 South Elm, a shop that has sold ring bologna and hams since butcher Ed Drier bought it in 1913. The storefront at 15 South Elm was dressed as the office of the Herald-Argus, La Porte's real newspaper, and the sermon scene was filmed in the United Methodist Church at Maple and Elm.
The farmhouse and barn were Hancock's own family farm, and the closing aerial view of town was a scale model, now on display at Three Oaks Heritage Hall.
Breckenridge, Colorado: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
Principal photography on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation began on March 27, 1989, in Colorado, with three weeks in Breckenridge before the production moved to the Warner Bros. ranch in Burbank.
It was there that the Griswolds' street was built on a backlot and dressed in cotton batting and sawdust for snow. The film opened on December 1, 1989, and took $74.5 million in North America.
The opening sequence, in which Chevy Chase's Clark Griswold marches his family into the woods to cut a tree, was shot on the Breckenridge Golf Course off Tiger Road before the Highlands subdivision was built around it.
Clark's saucer-sled run was filmed on Peak 8 at Breckenridge Ski Resort, mostly at night so that daytime skiing wasn't disrupted. Locals filled the extra roles, and the end credits thank the town.
The first weekend of December is a great time to visit for the Lighting of Breckenridge (it's set for December 5, 2026). The festive event sees 250,000 LED lights turned on at Blue River Plaza after the Race of the Santas, a fun run down Main Street where contestants dress up in red suits.
Ullr Fest, the town's tribute to the Norse god of snow, follows on December 17 to 19, 2026. Highlights include a parade and a "shotski" attempt, in which 1,444 people drink in unison from shot glasses glued to a line of skis. One Ski Hill Place at the base of Peak 8 is the lodging that puts you at the sled hill where Clark truly lived up to his nickname, "Sparky."
Nevada City, California: The Christmas Card (2006)
Visitors still head to Nevada City, California, because of a television movie that first aired on December 2, 2006.
The Christmas Card is a film made for the Hallmark Channel about a soldier in Afghanistan who tracks down a woman whose church-program Christmas card, sent to no soldier in particular, landed in his hands by chance. Nevada City was selected as the woman's hometown by producer Lincoln Lageson, whose parents grew up there.
The crew kept the town's name real (as well as those of its businesses), and its setting in the Sierra foothills made it an ideal backdrop for what was, at its premiere, the highest-rated movie Hallmark had ever aired.
The Nevada City Chamber of Commerce on Main Street hands out a year-round map of the filming sites, most of which are on Broad Street. The Nevada City United Methodist Church, the setting for several scenes, screens the movie free each Christmas season with commentary from parishioners who worked as extras.
The Classic Cafe, also on Broad Street, appears in two scenes and lists a Christmas Card Club sandwich on its menu. The National Exchange Hotel, open since 1856 and reopened in 2021 after a two-year restoration of its 38 rooms, also appears in the film.
Book a stay for the Victorian Christmas, held on Broad Street on Sundays and Wednesdays in December. More than 100 vendors participate, along with carolers, roasted chestnuts, and a 25-foot tree in Robinson Plaza.
Alpena, Michigan: Die Hard 2 (1990)
Whether you think Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie or not, it's safe to say that its sequel does. Bruce Willis' John McClane fights mercenaries who have seized a snowbound airport, set on Christmas Eve, so that counts for sure. And there's (mostly real) snow, too.
These scenes were filmed in Alpena, a town of 10,000 on Lake Huron. Alpena County Regional Airport, seven miles west of town, was picked for its 9,000-foot runway and its snow, although the crew had to make more as temperatures fluctuated.
The scenes shot in Alpena include passengers coming down an airliner's escape slide, the landing of the cargo plane, the crash wreckage and survivor searches, and the shot of John McClane climbing out of a runway grating before a jet nearly runs him down.
The production filled every hotel room in town, hired 400 residents as extras, and left an estimated $1 million in the local economy. The film opened on July 6, 1990, and took $240 million worldwide. The airport still handles daily SkyWest flights to Detroit.
Christmas is a great time to visit. The Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan features more than 40 decorated trees for its Season of Light exhibit, and the town's holiday parade takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving and ends with a tree lighting at Culligan Plaza on the Thunder Bay River. You can easily walk to the tree lighting event from the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Alpena-Downtown, and the museum is just a short drive away.
Ho Ho Hold the Eggnog!
The next time one of these festive films comes on, get ready to pause it when a scene shot in town or a recognizable landmark pops onto the screen.
The house from Home Alone looks just the same from the sidewalk today as it did in 1990. The Peak 8 run that Clark Griswold whizzed down on a saucer is still open for skiing, and the runway John McClane climbed onto in Alpena still lands a Delta flight from Detroit every day.
Sure, you recognize them all after watching them so many times, but it just wouldn't be Christmas without them on your screens.
