Home Alone House Owners Reveal Truth Behind An Iconic Scene

The plot of Home Alone might seem farfetched, but one scene in the Christmastime staple is more realistic than fans might assume.

In a clip published by People from the forthcoming documentary The House From..., the Abendshien family, who owned the real Home Alone house, reflect on living at the iconic property during the filming of the movie. Lauren Abendshien, who grew up in the house in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, revealed in the doc that she and her parents noticed a tree was missing from their yard after watching Home Alone for the first time.

“There’s a scene where Kevin goes out into the backyard to cut himself a Christmas tree, so he cuts one in half,” said Lauren. “My parents are sitting there and thinking, ‘Wow, they did a really good job filming that scene. It looks very realistic.’ Well, it wasn’t a fake tree.”

She explained, “They got home and looked in the backyard and saw, ‘Oh, they cut our actual tree in half.’ So the tree you see in the movie that Kevin cuts down was our actual tree.”

While Culkin’s Christmas tree scene turned out to be real, other moments in the 1990 festive favorite were most certainly not.

Speaking in the documentary, neighbors Herb and Joanie White, who lived opposite the Home Alone house, recalled the filming of one scene in which Kevin’s mother (played by Catherine O’Hara) arrives home during what appears to be a snow flurry.

“Those are potato flakes,” Herb revealed. “Off to the side, where you don’t see them, there are two big fans and two big burly guys with bags of potato flakes shaking them into the fan.” While the fake snow flakes “looked fine for the movie,” Herb said they “started getting pretty odorous after a while.”

Despite disruptions on their street, which continue to this day with Home Alone fans stopping by the original house, the Abendshien family said being part of the production was a “fun, positive experience.”

Legacy Of Home Alone

Released in November 1990, the Chris Columbus-directed film tells the story of 8-year-old Kevin McCallister (Culkin), who is accidentally left behind when his family jets off to France for the holidays. While home alone, the seemingly empty McCallister residence is targeted by two useless burglars; however, Kevin wreaks havoc on their devious plans.

Home Alone became a global box office hit, grossing $476.7 million worldwide. The festive flick also spawned five sequels, the most recent of which, Home Sweet Home Alone, was released in 2021.

“Home Alone was, is, and always will be a beloved global sensation,” O’Hara said during Culkin’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony in December 2023. She cited her younger co-star and his “perfect performance” as the reason why, saying, “It really was as if we had ambushed the home of this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along with it for the fun of it.”