We all love many things about Christmas, including the on-screen festivities. Whether it's a classic Christmas movie, an emotional festive advert, or our favourite TV shows' seasonal specials, we adore the cosy vibes and nostalgia they bring on the run-up to the big day.
It's not just the storylines or characters that stick with us. Often, it can be simple things such as a specific jumper a character wears, or a stuffed animal they carry around. A lot of the time, the homes featured in these shoots really stick with us, like the cottage in The Holiday.
Certain characteristics tend to appear in many Christmas-themed productions, from fireplaces to grand staircases, making everyday homes with these features sought-after locations.
We looked into popular Christmas films, TV series specials, and festive adverts that feature memorable homes to identify the most in-demand home features for these productions. This blog shares the results and explores why location scouts often seek these elements to help homeowners determine if their property is the perfect backdrop for Christmas-themed shoots.
The most commonly featured aspects in Christmas films
We gathered some of the most popular Christmas films that feature iconic homes, such as Home Alone, Deck the Halls, and Miracle on 34th Street, to discover the most common characteristics. The table below shows our findings:
High Ceilings
High ceilings are a key architectural feature for homes, featuring in 10 of the 14 Christmas films we looked into. These are key for a range of reasons.
Christmas films rely heavily on visual magic to emit a festive feeling through the screen, and what instantly makes any home feel festive? Christmas trees! Having high ceilings allows set designers to bring impressive floor-to-ceiling Christmas trees into a set. Most homes only have space for six-to-seven-foot trees, but homes with high ceilings can fit nine-to-twelve-foot trees, and this scale can truly bring childlike awe and make the home feel grand.
High ceilings bring visual depth; the art department can fill the frame with layers, texture and lights. It allows set designers to add an abundance of Christmas decor such as oversized wreaths, dramatic hanging features, and garland draped doorways without the space feeling too cluttered.
However, high ceilings are also extremely practical. This extra vertical space ensures cinematographers can hang softboxes, which are used in film to diffuse and soften harsh artificial lighting, so the space feels naturally illuminated without casting harsh shadows. They provide enough room for sound operators to position boom microphones above the actors without dropping into the frame, and directors to use jib arms or cranes for sweeping, wide-angle interior shots.
For examples of real-life high-ceiling shoot locations, take a look at this countryside home and this Parisian chic townhouse.
Large bay windows
Windows, especially large bay windows, are another key feature, appearing in 11 of the Christmas films. Not only are they great for maximising natural light, but they also easily show the outside, creating a contrast between the freezing winter weather and the warm, comforting home. Showing snow outside and on the window frames maximises the cosy feelings further.
Large windows are ideal for creating classic emotional scenes, such as a child peering out a frosted window, as seen in Home Alone, or somebody outside looking in at a happy family gathered around a fire, like in Miracle on 34th Street. They also provide a seamless alcove for Christmas trees, allowing them to be seen from the outside, which can make a great shot.
Windows can be decorated with garlands and Christmas lights, providing film crews with a stunning backdrop of lights twinkling in the window reflection. Multi-pane windows give lighting crews a wide surface area to shoot artificial "winter daylight" or cool blue "moonlight" into the set, creating dramatic edge lighting on actors.
Explore homes featuring classic multi-pane bay windows in this Regency townhouse and this eclectic family home.
Kitchen islands
The kitchen is often the heart of the home, and the same is true in Christmas movies, appearing in 11 films. Many famous Christmas homes feature a large kitchen island, where families gather round to eat, celebrate, or bicker (like the chaotic pizza night in Home Alone). This focus on warm, aspirational gathering spaces is also why the Nancy Meyers kitchen aesthetic surges in popularity every December. Meyers treated the kitchen not as a utilitarian workspace, but as an emotional centrepiece, most famously seen in The Holiday, where Amanda’s sprawling, island-anchored California kitchen sets the gold standard for effortless festive hosting.
Christmas is strongly associated with culinary traditions, baking and decorating sweet treats, and prepping Christmas dinner. A large kitchen island ensures filming crews can capture these moments perfectly: panning across a Christmas spread, ensuring characters can move fluidly whilst working with their hands, rolling pastry or icing a cake.
In traditional counter setups, actors have to turn their backs to the camera when cooking on a stove or standing at the sink, but kitchen islands allow actors to face the camera whilst cooking or prepping. They also offer a 360-degree perimeter, meaning multiple cast members can gather, standing around the island, leaning against it, or sitting on barstools, creating the ideal family shot.
Set designers love the horizontal surfaces of kitchen islands as they’re great for building visual warmth and staged abundance. Islands are often layered in true Meyers fashion with rustic wooden cutting boards, flour-dusted counters, oversized bowls of citrus, and jars of festive treats. This curated clutter makes the home feel authentically lived-in, cosy, and generous.
This Regency villa features an ideal kitchen island for Christmas baking and dinner prep.
A feature front door or porch
Many homes in Christmas movies have a stunning feature front door or large porch, whether it's a grand timber door with an extravagant knocker, a fun coloured door with stained glass window panes, or a cosy wooden porch with a rocking chair and decorated with twinkling fairy lights. Feature front doors and porches were spotted in 13 of the films analysed.
A feature front door or porch creates a stunning backdrop for entrance shots, showing family and friends arriving with Christmas gifts and heartfelt reunions, as well as emotional goodbyes. Front doors and porch settings often create iconic scenes, such as Mark’s cue cards in Love Actually and carolers singing on the doorstep.
They are also a perfect festive decor canvas; the front door is the home’s face. A solid timber door, especially in rich winter tones such as navy blue or deep red, paired with a grand porch provides an anchor point for hanging evergreen wreaths, Christmas bows, fairy lights, etc.
Browse stunning front doors, entranceways, and porches at this Tudor-style home and this colourful townhouse!
A central staircase
Staircases are a huge feature in many fictional homes, spotted in 13 films. They act as an ideal anchor point for Christmas staging, with garlands, ribbons, and fairy lights wrapped around bannisters, and stockings hung from balustrades. As staircases tend to be the first thing we see when entering a home, decorating them instantly establishes the home's warmth and festivity from the moment a character steps inside.
Staircases are ideal for capturing a range of shots such as children excitedly running down the stairs to open their gifts on Christmas morning, or a couple having a deep conversation away from the party. In The Family Stone, the bustling, decorated staircase is a vital part of big moments, such as the terminally ill matriarch Sybil and her daughter Amy sharing a quiet, tearful moment of unspoken understanding on Christmas morning.
This dark, moody townhouse and quiet luxury home both feature real-life sweeping staircases in different styles.
Fireplaces and mantels
When we think of homes featured in Christmas films, a fireplace is probably the first thing that comes to mind. Many Christmas films feature a cosy, lit fireplace with stockings hanging off the garland-decorated mantelpiece. This image instantly brings warmth and festive joy; the perfect scene for any Christmas film and a great focal point for living room shots and emotional moments. Fireplaces and mantels were spotted in all of the Christmas films we looked in to.
A roaring open fire also offers a rich, practical source of light which completely elevates the aesthetic of any scene. The warm flickering flame casts a soft amber hue on characters and the surrounding scene, creating the ultimate cosy and intimate atmosphere.
A fireplace paired with large bay windows creates striking visual contrast with the warm fire against falling snow outside. Directors often use wide shots, centred on the fireplace to capture hanging stockings, the twinkling Christmas tree lights, and stacked gifts in one scene. Of course, the fireplace is Santa's main entry point, so having them in sets really leans into childlike wonder. It’s no surprise this is the most featured aspect.
Explore a striking marble fireplace inside this ornate grand mansion.
Is this the case for festive TV shoots?
It’s not only movies that seek the specific features for Christmas filming. TV adverts and TV Christmas specials are a big part of the run-up to Christmas; many of us look forward to the debut of adverts and eagerly await the festive episode of our favourite shows. We wanted to look at some of the most popular Christmas adverts and TV specials set in homes to see how prominent those features are.
As you can see from the above chart, location scouts for TV shows and adverts also seemingly seek out these features, similarly to films.
Like Christmas movies, fireplaces and mantels are the most seen features. However, grand staircases are spotted less in TV series and adverts, which is likely due to adverts only focusing on one area such as the kitchen or living room, rather than areas throughout the home.
Feature front doors and large bay windows are often seen within adverts and TV shows, likely for the same reason they feature in Christmas movies: lots of natural lighting, showing the contrast of the cold outside and warm inside, an ideal frame for a Christmas tree, and an exceptional spot for an emotional scene.
Does the type of home matter?
When looking at a range of Christmas movies, adverts, and TV specials, the property type differed a lot. Some were grand colonial-style homes or cottages, while others were modern mansions, and even apartments and flats. The type of home used within Christmas filming usually depends on the area, the family, and the story.
If it's a film based in the UK, or a TV special for a classic British series, such as Gavin and Stacey, the homes featured include terraced houses and semi-detached family homes. Home Alone, set in Chicago, the United States, features a large Georgian-Colonial property, a popular style in the area big enough to house the McAllister family. Other films and TV series, such as Elf, feature apartments, as this is the most common type of home in New York, especially for a smaller family.
Could my home be used for festive filming?
Any home could be a great fit for a Christmas film, advert, or TV special; it’s completely dependent on the type of filming and what the directors and location scouts want. If your home has any of the above features, you have a high chance of seeing your home in the centre of a Christmas movie!
Whether it includes a roaring inglenook fireplace, a sweeping central staircase, or simply a grand front door ideal for showcasing a festive wreath, your home could be the backdrop for future memorable holiday moments.
If you think your property has the character, architectural details, or festive charm location scouts are looking for, we’d love to see it. List your home with Locations Direct, or book your perfect festive filming location!