The holiday season traditionally conjures images of family and emotional warmth in the time of the bleakest weather and unexpected kindness.

That is, until recent movies tried to exploit the downside of Christmas.

Sure, the holidays can flat-out suck: Just think of the hellish experience of shopping and the crass consumerism of the holiday.

But unfortunately for movies like “Christmas with the Kranks,” capturing the dark side of Christmas in a popular family movie will have no other ending but to ultimately promote the holiday it was so bitingly criticizing – because who wants an unhappy ending in a Christmas movie?

The movie opens with a depressed couple, Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis), sending its daughter, Blair, to the Peace Corps in Peru the day after Thanksgiving. Without their daughter, Luther and Nora realize Christmas “just won’t be the same.”

Luther conjures up the bright idea to skip Christmas altogether – including cards, presents and the annual Krank Christmas bash – for a 10-day cruise. Nora half-heartedly goes along with the scheme to fill the void left by their daughter’s absence.

The Kranks’ neighborhood goes berserk when the couple boycotts Christmas – writing a nasty front-page article on the Scrooge-esque couple in the local newspaper and placing phone calls to “Free Frosty,” the giant snowman every neighbor puts on their roof each season.

On the day the Kranks plan to leave for fun in the sun, Blair phones expecting a merry Krank celebration for her and her new fiancée. The Kranks now must save face for their precious daughter and pull together for the holiday – and neighborhood – they were so desperately avoiding. The movie’s Christmas rhetoric and paradox leaves the audience cynical of holiday movies.

Some funny moments happen in the film, mostly thanks to Allen and Curtis, but they are few and far between. Watch for Victor (Dan Akroyd) persuading Nora to tan with him in teeny bathing suits. Later, the two are found wearing them in front of their priest and neighbors. Akroyd also fares well as the block’s self-appointed neighborhood chief who rallies against the Krank’s un-spirit.

Don’t skip Christmas like the Kranks, but do skip “Christmas with the Kranks.”