Published Dec 22, 2025
Kirsten McCarthy / Cats.com
One of my favorite parts of the yuletide season is watching a marathon of Christmas movies, while nestled up next to my cats on the couch. Not surprisingly, many Christmas movies feature cats in them, for a lovely touch of festive feline.
Last year, we wrote about five Christmas movies specifically about cats, where cats play starring roles and/or the entire plot revolves around a cat ensemble: Santa Claws, Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever, The Nine Lives of Christmas, The Nine Kittens of Christmas, and A Meowy Christmas.
This year, I watched a dozen Christmas movies that reportedly had some element of cats in them – whether cats make a cameo appearance or play a more significant supporting role in the cast. I’ve picked out six for us cat lovers to watch with our felines. Grab a fuzzy throw blanket, light a candle, drink hot chocolate, and enjoy!
1. Christmas with the Kranks
imdb.com
- Genres: Comedy, Family
In this comical, delightful gem from 2004, a fluffy white Persian named Muffles plays a key supporting role. Luther, played by Tim Allen, is leaving his house one day and accidentally steps on the tail of Muffles, the neighbor’s cat loitering by Luther’s car in the driveway. Muffles shrieks, and girls give Luther a dirty look. Luther calls out to the neighbor to complain about why their cat isn’t on a leash.
“Only dogs wear a leash, old man!” neighbor Walt Scheel responded.
This starts a hostile rivalry between Luther and the cat, who re-appears a few times and even gets frozen by a blast of water. Spoiler alert: All’s well that ends well, and in true cat style, Muffles teaches the jerky Luther a good lesson by the heartwarming ending of Christmas with the Kranks. Luther offers to catsit for the traveling neighbors at the end, but Muffles is still miffed.
2. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
imdb.com
- Genres: Comedy
The poor cat in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation must be the unluckiest feline in film history, and while the 1989 Chevy Chase movie is funny, cat lovers will find the cat portion of the plot disturbing and sad.
Elderly Aunt Bethany, who is clearly senile, and her husband come to the Griswold house in the final third of the movie. Rusty, the teenage son, notices that Aunt Bethany’s gift-wrapped box is meowing, and his dad discovers that she “wrapped up her damn cat!”
That part is funny. But, the fluffy, silvery cat starts engaging in feline mischief with the tree while the family has a disastrous Christmas dinner. The cat gets electrocuted and leaves a cat-shaped burn on the carpet.
This famous scene is cringeworthy for cat lovers, so remind yourself that it’s just a movie. Perhaps this National Lampoon cat served some good by giving viewers a lesson on cat safety with Christmas trees.
3. Gremlins
imdb.com
- Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
Is this comedy-horror classic from 1984 really a Christmas movie? Well, I say yes. Gremlins is not about Christmas, but Christmas trees, music, and other signs of the holiday appear everywhere in this film.
The only furry creatures are Gizmo and his offspring for more than an hour. Then, once all hell has broken loose with the grotesque Gremlin characters invading town, we see a soon-to-be victim, the mean-spirited Mrs. Deagle, riding down her staircase in a lift, with one orange tabby in her lap while another runs by her as she says “Kopec! You stop that, you bad kitty!” Meanwhile, she praises the cat on her lap for being a good kitty. Then, there is another orange tabby and white cat she calls Dollar Bill waiting downstairs with a couple of black cats.
Mrs. Deagle is annoyed when she hears caroling outside and goes onto the porch with a jug of water to toss on the carolers – who turn out to be maniacal Gremlins with devilish grins. It’s a hilarious, cartoonish, laugh-out-loud moment.
Unfortunately for the cat lady, a Gremlin is waiting inside for its next victim, and poor Mrs. Deagle screams: “I’m not ready!” But, the Gremlin is ready for her demise. I hope the cats emerged unscathed.
4. Scrooged
imdb.com
- Genres: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
In 1988, Bill Murray starred in Scrooged, a wacky, urban take on the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. We first hear about cats when Murray’s Frank Cross character, a grumpy television executive, speaks to the big boss, Preston Rhinelander, who says that cats and dogs are watching TV and they should make programming that caters to the animals.
Then, in the last half hour of the movie, Robert Mitchum’s Preston is watching TV with his wife at home, where they are surrounded by their cats. Two silvery white Turkish Angoras place their paws on the TV as they check out images of rodent reindeer. Looks like Preston’s idea worked!
5. While You Were Sleeping
imdb.com
- Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance
This sweet 1995 holiday romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman feeds into some stereotypes about lonely single women, as Bullock’s Lucy character is an isolated Chicago transit worker who lives alone except for her adorable calico cat named Mel. The cat eyes Lucy curiously as she disastrously tries to pull her Christmas tree into her apartment window.
Long story short: Lucy rescues a handsome man named Peter who was pushed onto the train tracks, his family thinks she’s his fiance, she plays along with the facade, and she falls in love with the man’s brother, Jack. While Lucy visits the injured man’s apartment, we encounter a silvery longhaired cat that appears to be a Persian whom Lucy calls Fluffy. That cat belongs to comatose Peter’s girlfriend. Messy!
Although Lucy’s human loneliness ended in While You Were Sleeping, she better have taken her beloved Mel with her to wedded bliss!
6. Black Christmas
imdb.com
- Genres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Ok, this is a horror movie, so hardly what we’d think of as a typical happy, heartwarming Christmas flick. However, this scary story does take place at Christmastime, and Christmas is essential to the plot and setting.
Black Christmas begins at a college sorority house, where Christmas carols are playing and sisters are hosting a party among beautiful seasonal decorations. Yet, a sinister creeper is lurking outside, and someone keeps making crank calls.
A sorority sister named Claire calls out to a silvery white, longhaired cat named Claude in an upstairs bedroom, where the killer hides in the closet. He strangles Claire with plastic wrap, and tightly wraps her head with it. Later, another woman is walking through the house, calling “Here, kitty kitty!” to find Claude – and discovers him licking the plastic covering the victim’s head. (Such a cat thing to do, isn’t it?)
