Ah, the Home Alone house – a beloved icon, a tourist trap, and apparently, the site of some unexpected landscaping. As it turns out, the movie didn’t just gift us with booby traps and burglars getting obliterated by flying paint cans. Nope, it also left the homeowners with a little tree trauma – courtesy of a pint-sized Macaulay Culkin.
Back in 1990, Macaulay was just a wee lad starring as Kevin McCallister in the Christmas classic that kicked off a franchise. But a new documentary, The House From…, reveals that young Macaulay didn’t just act like a mischievous kid on set. He lived it.
The Aberdshein family, the lucky owners of the Winnetka, Illinois home, shared a juicy story that’ll make you laugh and wince. According to Lauren Aberdshein, everything seemed dandy during the movie’s premiere. Her parents sat on the couch, popcorn in hand, when the scene where Kevin chops down a Christmas tree in the backyard rolled by.
“My parents were like, ‘Wow, that fake tree looks insanely realistic,’” Lauren recalled. “The branches, the trunk, even the sap – 10/10 set design, right? Turns out… not so much.”
When the family returned home, they were greeted by a Christmas miracle – or rather, the opposite. There it was: their once-glorious backyard tree. Well, half of it.
Yup, the production team (or more likely Macaulay with an overactive sense of realism) didn’t just film the scene with movie magic. No sir! They went full Paul Bunyan on the Aberdsheins’ actual tree.
“The tree you see in the movie? That was our real tree,” Lauren confirmed with a laugh that probably masked years of emotional damage. “They straight-up sliced it in half, and my parents just sat there in disbelief. Like, seriously, Kevin?!”
So, the next time you rewatch Home Alone and see Kevin proudly dragging that tree through the snow, just remember: Somewhere in Winnetka, a family stared at their mutilated backyard wondering how they let an 8-year-old kid with a saw run wild.
Iconic movie moment? Definitely. Landscaping nightmare? Absolutely. But hey, at least they have a Hollywood horror story to tell at every holiday party for the rest of time. 🎄