Deck the Halls Movie Review: Is It OK for Kids? (Now on Netflix)
This is my Deck the Halls movie review, written the same night the 2006 Christmas comedy landed on Netflix in the US on November 5, 2026. I watched it at home on a cozy night in, and I gave it 8.5 out of 10. If you’re here because you want to know whether it’s OK to put on for the kids this holiday season, the short answer is that it’s rated PG for some crude and suggestive humor and for language. There are a few gags parents will want to know about before pressing play, and I list them all below.
Deck the Halls stars Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick as two neighbors in a small Massachusetts town who go to war over Christmas lights. It runs 93 minutes, and it comes with a cast of animals too: two sleigh horses, a whole live nativity scene and one very lucky poodle. We have three dogs at home, a 14-year-old Pomeranian and two 3-year-old boys, so the animal question is always my first one. That’s why there’s an Animal and Dog Scene Guide in this post too.
I usually review thrillers, but this one comes with the three questions I get asked the most: is it OK for kids, are the animals OK, and is it worth the time. Here’s everything I wrote down while watching, with no spoilers for how the light war ends.
| Release date | November 22, 2006 in theaters, on Netflix in the US since November 5, 2026 |
| Runtime | 1 hr 33 min |
| Rating | PG for some crude and suggestive humor, and for language |
| Genre | Christmas family comedy |
| Scare level | 0 / 5 (not scary at all) |
| Animals | Two sleigh horses, a nativity camel, cow, donkey, goat and sheep, plus one poodle |
| Post-credits scene | No, just the credits |
| Where to watch | Netflix (US) |
| My verdict | 8.5 / 10, a fun, easy holiday pick for family movie night |
| Best for / Good to know | Best for families with kids 10 and up who love slapstick. Good to know: the PG comes from a few suggestive jokes and mild language, not just silly pratfalls. |
What Is Deck the Halls About? (No Spoilers)
Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick) is an optometrist in the made-up town of Cloverdale, Massachusetts, and he takes Christmas very seriously. There’s an Advent calendar, matching sweaters for the family card, and a hunt for the perfect tree. Then, in the middle of the night on December 1, Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) moves in across the street with his wife Tia and their teenage twin daughters.
Buddy is a car salesman who can sell just about anything, and he gets bored fast. When he notices that every house on the street shows up on an online satellite map except his, he decides to cover his house in so many lights that it can be seen from space. The bigger his display gets, the more the town loves it, and the more Steve feels like he’s losing his spot as the neighborhood’s Christmas guy. That’s where the light war starts, and that’s where I’ll stop so I don’t give away how it plays out.
Fun detail for 2026 viewers: the satellite map in the movie is called MyEarth, a made-up version of the map apps that were brand new back then. Kal Penn plays the tech guy behind it.
Who’s in Deck the Halls? (Cast)
- Danny DeVito as Buddy Hall, the new neighbor with very big ideas. You probably know him from Matilda, which he also directed, or from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- Matthew Broderick as Dr. Steve Finch, the town’s self-appointed Christmas expert. He’s Ferris Bueller, and he’s also the voice of grown-up Simba in The Lion King.
- Kristin Davis as Kelly Finch, Steve’s wife. She’s Charlotte from Sex and the City.
- Kristin Chenoweth as Tia Hall, Buddy’s wife. She was the original Glinda in Wicked on Broadway.
- Alia Shawkat and Dylan Blue as Madison and Carter Finch, Steve’s kids. Alia Shawkat is Maeby from Arrested Development.
- Kelly and Sabrina Aldridge as Ashley and Emily Hall, Buddy’s twin daughters.
- Also look for Jorge Garcia from Lost, Fred Armisen, Kal Penn and a young Cory Monteith from Glee in a small part as Madison’s date.
My Deck the Halls Movie Review: Score and Why
I gave Deck the Halls 8.5 out of 10. It isn’t trying to be anything fancy. It’s two really good comic actors going all in on a silly neighbor feud, and Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick play off each other so well. Buddy keeps getting louder and bigger, Steve keeps getting more and more wound up, and watching them try to one-up each other is the fun of the whole movie.
The light display is a big reason to watch, too. Buddy’s house gets more over the top with every scene, and it put me right in the holiday mood. It’s the kind of Christmas movie that’s easy to put on while you wrap presents or decorate the tree, and it doesn’t ask much of you.
For context, critics were tough on this one back in 2006, and it sits at 6% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Opening-weekend audiences were kinder and gave it a B minus on CinemaScore. My score is just my own living-room take, nearly 20 years later, on a cozy night in.
Animal and Dog Scene Guide: Are the Animals OK?
This is the part I always look for first. There are three groups of animals in Deck the Halls, and the production earned American Humane‘s “No Animals Were Harmed” certification. Their safety reps supervised the animal action on location in Canada. Here’s what you’ll see.
- The sleigh horses. Two horses pull a sleigh that ends up running loose through town with Steve hanging on after the sleigh bells spook them. It looks wild, but behind the scenes, expert drivers steered, sometimes hidden inside the sleigh, a rider went ahead to clear the street, and when the sleigh breaks away the horses were unhitched with a remote release pin. For some close shots, the crew pushed the sleigh by hand or pulled it with a small tractor.
- The poodle. Mrs. Ryor and her poodle are right in the sleigh’s path. A stunt double grabbed the dog out of the way, and the close-up of the actress with her dog was filmed with no horses around. On screen it’s over in a second, and the dog is fine.
- The live nativity. Buddy’s display includes a camel, a cow, a donkey, a goat and sheep. On set they stood tied with quick-release knots while trainers stayed close and fed them hay and grain, and the falling “snow” was lightweight paper blown by a big fan.
Our oldest is 14 now, and her winter walks look a lot slower than a runaway sleigh. If you have a senior pup too, here’s how I knew my senior dog needed a stroller.
Is Deck the Halls OK for Kids? (Parents Guide)
Deck the Halls is rated PG “for some crude and suggestive humor, and for language.” Common Sense Media recommends it for ages 10 and up. Here’s what’s actually in it, so you can decide for your own family.
- Suggestive humor: teen girls in short elf costumes doing a dance routine, a couple of jokes about grown men noticing them, a running gag about a cross-dressing sheriff, and two men who wake up sharing a sleeping bag without clothes (nothing is shown).
- Language: mild words like “ass,” “damn,” “hell” and “crap,” plus “oh my God.”
- Slapstick: snowball hits, the runaway sleigh, a Christmas tree lot fire and fireworks, all played for laughs.
- Drinking: one character has a beer.
My pick is 10 and up too. The slapstick is fine for younger kids, but a few of the jokes are clearly written for the grown-ups in the room, so I’d watch it together the first time and see how it goes.
Is Deck the Halls Scary or Sad?
Not scary at all. It’s a 0 out of 5 on my scare scale, with no jump scares, no creepy scenes and nothing that should keep a kid up at night.
The closest it gets to heavy is when the light war starts causing real trouble at home for both families, and the couples argue a bit. It stays light, it never turns dark, and I won’t say how it wraps up.
Where Was Deck the Halls Filmed?
The movie is set in the made-up town of Cloverdale, Massachusetts, but it was filmed in British Columbia, Canada, from late May to July 2006. Yes, this snowy Christmas movie was shot in summer.
The two houses were sets built in White Rock under a giant tent, about 280 feet long, 130 feet wide and 60 feet tall, so the crew could shoot winter scenes in warm weather and film night scenes in the middle of the day. Other scenes were filmed around Surrey’s Cloverdale and Ocean Park neighborhoods, at Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster and in Mundy Park in Coquitlam. Funny enough, the real Cloverdale in Surrey shares its name with the fictional town.
How They Made Buddy’s Light Show
Buddy’s house is the real star of this movie, so I went looking for how they pulled it off. Here’s what the crew shared when the movie came out in 2006.
- About 100,000 lights were in use at any given point, a mix of regular bulbs and LEDs, all running through 800 dimmer packs.
- The crew made 12 different lighting designs for Buddy’s house, which is why it keeps getting bigger from scene to scene.
- Parts of the house were covered in LED panels with video projected onto them, so they could do effects that plain string lights can’t.
- Lighting designer Jason McKinnon, who has a music background, helped time the lights to the music.
- A few crew members had one full-time job: finding and fixing the bulbs that went out.
- Both houses were built from scratch in about two weeks, and the tent covered the whole block so night scenes could be shot in the daytime.
It was also one of Vancouver’s hottest summers on record, so the costume team cut open sweaters and pulled the lining out of the winter jackets to keep the cast from overheating. When Steve looks cozy in his Christmas sweater, just know it was probably a very sweaty day on set.
Fun Facts I Read Before Watching
English is my second language, so I always read up on a movie before I press play. Here’s my homework for this one.
- Before it was Deck the Halls, the movie went by All Lit Up and Wreck the Halls.
- Matthew Broderick trained for a few weeks with an Olympic speed skating coach at Chelsea Piers in New York before filming the skating race.
- Director John Whitesell also made Netflix’s Christmas rom-com Holidate (2020).
- Kristin Davis plays Matthew Broderick’s wife, and he’s married to her Sex and the City costar Sarah Jessica Parker. Davis checked with Parker before taking the part, and Parker was all for it.
- The music is by composer George S. Clinton.
- It opened over Thanksgiving weekend in 2006 in fourth place with about $12 million, and it went on to make $47.2 million worldwide.
Is There a Post-Credits Scene in Deck the Halls?
No. There’s no extra scene during or after the credits, so you can turn it off once the credits start rolling.
Deck the Halls vs Deck the Hallways: Don’t Mix Them Up
Funny story. When I typed “deck the” into Netflix tonight, the first thing that popped up was Deck the Hallways, and I had to double-check that it was the right movie. It isn’t. Here’s how to tell them apart, plus one more Deck the Halls you might run into.
- Deck the Halls (2006): the one in this review. Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick, a Christmas lights war, rated PG, 93 minutes. On Netflix in the US.
- Deck the Hallways (2025): a holiday romance with Loretta Devine, Naika Toussaint and Jaime M. Callica, about a tech executive who teams up with her childhood crush to bring back her grandma’s holiday traditions. It runs about 90 minutes and is newly added on Netflix too.
- Deck the Halls (2011): a TV movie based on the holiday mystery novel by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, with Kathy Najimy, Larry Miller, Jane Alexander and Scottie Thompson.
My tip: search for Danny DeVito instead of the title. The right poster has him grinning in a Santa hat, with Matthew Broderick hanging upside down in the lights next to him.
Who Should Watch Deck the Halls
- Families with kids 10 and up who love slapstick and big holiday set pieces.
- Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick fans, since the whole movie runs on the two of them.
- Anyone who goes big on outdoor Christmas lights and wants to laugh at a neighbor who goes even bigger.
In the mood for something with more heart? My A Dog’s Perfect Christmas parents guide covers another new Christmas movie on Netflix, and that one has a senior basset hound and a corgi puppy in it.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re putting Deck the Halls on for the family this year, the two things I’d keep in mind are the PG jokes, which land more with teens and grown-ups than little kids, and the runaway sleigh scene, which looks wild but was done with a lot of care for the horses. For me it was an easy 8.5, and a fun way to kick off Christmas movie season.
My next review is up too: here’s my Black Doves season 2 parents guide for the British spy series that just landed on Netflix. Have you watched Deck the Halls with your family, or do you have a neighbor like Buddy on your street? Tell me in the comments. And if you want another Christmas movie with a dog in it, here’s my A Dog’s Perfect Christmas review.
About me: I’m Emily. My AMC A-List lets me see up to four movies a week in theaters, and I watch the big new Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ releases at home. Thrillers yes, horror never. I always read up on a movie before I press play, and I share that homework here too. See all my Movie Nights reviews.
Got a dog at home too? Here’s the Thanksgiving meal I make for my three dogs, and how much I tip our dog groomer. And every movie I’ve reviewed this year is in My 2026 Movie Log.
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