woman who lives in the suburbs of Chicago and is as obsessed with Christmas as everyone around her. Nora dresses for the seasons and I found out by speaking to people at Marshall Field's in Chicago that the Christmas sweater is a big deal. And Jamie wears it so well." As for Vic Frohmeyer, she saw him as "a sort of commander-in-chief of the neighborhood, so I wanted something with a bit of a military flair. Since he's also a college professor, we cut the pattern from a general's jacket and made it professorial by using a vintage tweed mixed with corduroy." Music The soundtrack was produced and supervised by American musician Steven Van Zandt, who arranged and produced 6 of the tracks. It features many holiday standards, including "Jingle Bell Rock" by Brenda Lee; "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Billy May & His Orchestra with vocal by Alvin Stoller; "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" by Eddie Dunstedter; "White Christmas" by Dean Martin; "Frosty the Snowman" by Steve Van Zandt; "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley; and "The Christmas Song" by Ella Fitzgerald. It received generally favorable reviews, with many critics appreciating the use of garage rock as a "fresh take" on Christmas music. Houston Press featured it on their list of top 10 Christmas movie soundtracks. Reception Box office On its opening weekend, it earned $21.6 million on 3,393 screens, ranking #3 behind National Treasure and The Incredibles. It eventually grossed $96.6 million worldwide. Critical response It is the second-worst reviewed Christmas movie on the site, behind The Nutcracker in 3D. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 22 out of 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert gave the film 1/4 stars, calling it "a holiday movie of stunning awfulness that gets even worse when it turns gooey at the end." Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "The characters are unpleasant, the jokes are unfunny, and the sentiment is hypocritical -- so this movie is about as unappetizing as last year's figgy pudding." Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post wrote: "Christmas With the Kranks is a leaden whimsy so heavy it threatens to crash through the multiplex floor." Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote: "You will not want to