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I didn’t laugh much during Fred Claus, and neither did the audience. I’m not saying the movie was an ultimate failure, but the movie just wasn’t firmly in the “comedy” category. It was in the tearjerker department, the sappy, I-need-to-reexamine-my-life department, and I thought it was pretty good.

Let’s point out again, that from where I’m sitting, Vince Vaughn is one of the great comedians of our time… to 14-to-35-year old men everywhere. Let’s be real. Wedding Crashers is the most quoted movie on college campuses, with Old School not far behind. No guy has looked at a wedding the same since the movie came out. But I digress. Kevin Spacey is bar none a great actor on his own, with The Usual Suspects, Pay It Forward, Beyond the Sea, and more. Paul Giamatti is the strangest Santa Claus I’ve ever seen, just because he’s not big, old and fat. Whatever you think of these three actors, it’s quite the collection for Fred Claus.

The movie might as well be the Parable of the Prodigal Son, complete with commentary on how both sons have screwed up. Fred is the older but wayward brother, and finds himself in a hard place, stuck right behind the rock; Nick is the younger but saintly brother who doesn’t see the harm that he’s done to his older brother. Both of them have some growing to do, around who’s naughty, who’s nice, and what it means to be a saint (don’t worry, they don’t really talk like that).

Kevin Spacey’s efficiency expert might as well be the devil, or at least the tempter, but he’s not going to be all bad by the end, if you’ve ever seen a Christmas movie before. Actually, he’s Scrooge, if Fred isn’t—but maybe we’re all Scrooge…

Scrooge? Have we discovered another Christmas spirit movie? I believe we have! We have all the ingredients: hard luck, a Christmas Eve in peril, a child who needs to be loved, and some other notable Christmas elements, like reindeer, cookies, the North Pole and elves. But this tearjerking family flick is meant for more.

There’s also the side story about an elf who can’t get noticed by the woman of his dreams, the ticket attendant who can’t get Fred cleaned up, the friction between family members, etc. that make this a movie that you could watch all year. And frankly, from a faith and morals perspective, I find myself liking the movie more and more in retrospect.

The three movie masters, Vaughn, Spacey, and Giamatti have added their work to the Christmas collective, and children everywhere will reflect on the importance of gift giving, the frustration of family and how to work it out, and so much more. This one gets my vote of confidence for this year’s “Christmas Movie Of The Year.”