Christmas with the Kranks starred Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis as Luther and Nora, a suburban Chicago couple who decide to skip their annual holiday celebration this year. Their plan is scuttled, however, when Blair calls from the Miami airport to say she's coming home with her new Peruvian fiance for the first time and wants to introduce him to the Kranks' traditions.

Empty nest syndrome prompts Nora to agree, and the family sets sail on a ten day Caribbean cruise. In the meantime, their neighbors - especially the self-appointed taskmaster of Hemlock Street, Vic Frohmeyer (an acerbic Dan Aykroyd) and his wife, Bev Scheel - are in a tizzy. They organize a campaign to force the Kranks to decorate, with children picketing and neighbors constantly calling. It's not enough to derail the Kranks, however - they are determined to see through their plans.

Filming took place in and around Vancouver and Burnaby, including the city of Surrey, where some of the interior scenes were shot at the Guildford Mall. Other locations include the Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster and Mundy Park in Coquitlam.

The movie's Chicago suburbia, however, was largely constructed on a studio back lot. Production designer Garreth Stover scoured "every outlying neighborhood in the Chicago area" before concluding that local conditions would be too harsh for a successful shoot, so he built the street from scratch in a parking lot in Downey, California. The film's soundtrack, a typically spirited conflagration of classic and contemporary holiday hits, was compiled by composer John Debney.