Can you believe it’s been twenty years? ALREADY? It seems just like yesterday we were laughing hysterically for the first time over what would become a holiday classic.

“Elf” stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human who, as a baby orphan, climbs into Santa’s sack (Santa is played by the late great Ed Asner) and is transported back to the North Pole. There Papa Elf (played by icon Bob Newhart) takes him under his wing and cares for him, raising him into the big Elf we come to know and love.

The problem is, Buddy has never really completely fit in. He knows he’s “different” from the other elves. He’s much bigger than they are, much slower at making toys and just, well, seems in the way. So Papa Elf finally tells him the truth about how he came to live at the North Pole. And that his parents are Walter Hobbs and Susan Wells. Of course we are never told how Papa Elf knows this. Maybe because he’s Papa Elf? Was Santa withholding info all these years? Who knows! But now Buddy is curious. Papa Elf tells Buddy his mother is dead but his father is still alive and well and working for a children’s book publishing company in the Empire State Building in New York City. So like any curious elf, Buddy takes off for New York to find his dad.

Of course like any elf who has never left the North Pole, Buddy discovers all kinds of things in New York: the world’s best cup of coffee, revolving doors, taxi cabs that don’t stop, people walking down the street dressed as Santa (actual people–NOT ACTORS!) gum on subway railings. You name it. And he eventually finds his father, much to Walter’s (James Caan) dismay. Walter already has a family: his son Michael (Daniel Tay) and wife Emily (Mary Steenburgen) and who is this strange guy dressed as an elf telling me I’m his long-lost father. So Walter has Buddy tossed from the building and the security guards sarcastically suggest Buddy go find a job at Gimbels. Which is exactly what he does.

There he becomes enamored with Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), a less-than-thrilled Gimbels employee dressed as an elf. Buddy gets over-excited when he learns that “Santa is coming to town” the following day and goes overboard decorating the toy department for Santa’s arrival.

Following a brawl with the imposter Santa who sits on the throne in the toy department (“You sit on a throne of lies!”), Buddy gets tossed in jail. Walter bails him out, takes him for a DNA test, done by none other than director Jon Favreau, learns Buddy is indeed his son, then takes him home to meet the family. Emily adores him. Walter and Michael can’t stand him, although Michael warms up to him when he and Buddy take on a bunch of bullies in a snowball fight. Michael also encourages Buddy to ask Jovie out on a date.

Walter’s publishing company is failing and in a last ditch effort on Christmas Eve they secure a meeting with Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage), a person Buddy mistakes as an elf, and an angry one at that.

Finch leaves in a huff, Walter gets pissed at Buddy, Buddy takes off and leaves the Hobbs’ apartment leaving a good-bye note on an Etch-a-Sketch. Michael tells Walter about Buddy leaving, Walter gets fired, Santa’s sleigh crashes in Central Park because the engine failed due to low Christmas spirit and the engine failing. Buddy reattaches the sleigh as Jovie leads a crowd of onlookers into singing “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. Because that’s how you invoke the Christmas spirit in people, you know!

All’s well that ends well. Buddy writes a book about his life, allowing Walter to establish his own publishing company, Buddy and Jovie marry and have a child and live at the North Pole forever and ever with Papa Elf.