A woman who grew up in the real life Home Alone house during the creation of the 1990 Christmas classic movie has revealed what it was really like at the time of filming.

For many, it is the greatest festive film ever made and embodies everything about the festive spirit (paint cans and irons to the face aside, maybe). And the warm fuzzy feeling that the film gives many is personified in the house at the centre of filming.

Home Alone follows Macaulay Culkin, who plays eight-year-old Kevin McCallister as he defends their family home in suburban Chicago from the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern).

It sees Kevin turn their huge, idyllic home into a boobytrapped jungle of painful goings on for the hapless criminal duo.

And the home is a very real property worth £4 million just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

Currently in the process of being sold for millions of dollars, it has had a huge makeover since its 1990 days.

But go back 34 years and you had an actual family living in the property. Among those living there, in the wealthy neighbourhood of Winnetka, was Lauren Abendshien.

Lauren Abendshien, whose parents owned the famous McCallister house when the movie was filmed (ITV)

Now 40 years old, she was six at the time of the film being made.

Recalling what life at the house was like during the months of filming that took place there, she told ITV’s This Morning that they actively lived in the house while filming was happening.

She said: “We stayed in the house pretty much the entire period, which was about four or five months.

“In order to avoid appearing onscreen, we would have to crawl around the window line from room to room.”

The Home Alone house in the film (20th Century Fox)

The house regularly hosted crew and cast during downtime, too, with Macaulay Culkin and younger brother Kieran spending a lot of time indoors.

Abendshein said: “They would spend time in the house when they weren’t filming their scenes.

“Macaulay Culkin used my room to study with his tutor and his brother [Kieran], wasn’t filming as much, so he would just hang out in my room.”

On the success of the film, the Abendshien family said it was ‘something special’ but that they couldn’t have imagined just how big it has become.

The Home Alone house (20th Century Fox)

“It was very surreal when the movie came out and all of a sudden it’s holiday season in 1990 and it was an endless row of cars and people wanted to see the house and take photographs and that was very new to us, but we grew to love it and we shared the magic of the movie,” she said.

While external shots of the house were the real deal, a lot of the internal shots were actually from somewhere two miles down the road.

The film’s indoor scenes were shot at New Trier Township High School, an abandoned property that was big enough for the production to create the appropriate sets and a sound stage, with director Chris Columbus unable to do the stunts inside the house due to the space needed for the film crew.

A couple are living the dream after purchasing an uninhabited island in Finland because it was ‘less than a house deposit’.

It all started when Oliver Russell, 24, who is half American and half Finnish, would visit family and friends in the Nordic country on his summer holidays.

Growing up in Laguna Beach, California, he’d always thought about moving to Helsinki, and in 2022, he did just that – moving from Fort Collins, Colorado after failing to get inter-state tuition to Finland to study international business.

After he settled in, Oliver ended up meeting his girlfriend Helena Tomaszewska, 20.

Instead of doing the usual and getting an overpriced flat in the city, the couple opted for something much cheaper – and much bigger.

The US couple plan to live on a two and a half acre island (SWNS)

Having moved over in August 2022, the pair loved the idea of having a summer house.

The business student explained: “I fell in love with the idea of going to Finland and going to school there. As a Finnish citizen, I got free schooling and it has been awesome here and I have really enjoyed my time here.

“In Finland, the summer cottage life is a huge part of the culture and I would come out here every summer. I loved the summer cottage life and wanted one of my own.”

Checking out the property prices, Oliver went on a real estate website and came across an island that had been vacant for 10 years for just $36,569 (£27,712).

On the property listing, he said: “I was looking more for fun, I was going through a real estate website and found the island.

“It ended up being cheaper than a normal lot I could buy so we jumped on it.

“I offered $31,000 (£23,492.42) and got accepted.”

The couple arrived at their new home in June 2024 and noticed that it was largely uninhabitable – so they got to work.

The island had been vacant for 10 years (SWNS)

Oliver said: “We made a frame out of logs that we felled from trees and I got some decking from a hardware store.

“We then built an outhouse and I am now trying to build a shower structure so we can wash while we’re on the island.

“We wanted to get the base camp set up so we have a comfortable place to stay while the big building happens next year.”

They now spend most of their weekends working on their home and are in the process of building a summer cottage with a fancy sauna.

Oliver said: “The ultimate dream is to build a log cabin for the summer.

“But first we want to build a sauna cabin – based on the rules, one-third of the plot has to be a sauna cabin.

“We haven’t set ourselves super hard deadlines as there have been a lot of learning experiences.

“It is a very big commitment, especially now with me and Helena both being students.”

He added that it’s been a challenge ‘getting work done’, but it’s also ‘been fun though’, adding: “Every time we go to the island, it doesn’t feel real that it is our’s – it is so nice to be out there.

“It is so quiet and because it is an island nobody can stumble across it.”

You might remember the infamous ‘stubborn family’ who previously rejected a £25 million offer for their land, but have you ever wondered how much it could be valued at now?

The Zammit family in Sydney, Australia, own a mansion surrounded by a 200m green lawn, which developers have been offering huge amounts of cash for so they can bulldoze it down and build new properties on top.

The Windsor Castle-style home is believed to boast a huge barn out the back, with a triple car garage as well as more than five bedrooms.

The Zammits have been offered so much money and refuse to budge, with the Daily Mail reporting to have recently visited the property to find the outside littered with estate agent business cards and ‘handwritten letters’ begging the family to contact them.

But if they aren’t budging for £25m, what’s it actually worth? With scenic views of the Blue Mountains, surely it’s got to cost a bomb?

And although the family have been pestered to no end and now live in the middle of a housing estate, they don’t seem fazed.

In 2015, the Zammits briefly put it up for sale and was priced at $858,000 to $945,000, according to real estate records on RP Data show, and again in 2016 it was listed.

Since then, the family have shared how different the land has become.

Diane Zammit told Daily Mail Australia: “It used to be farmland dotted with little red brick homes and cottages.

“Every home was unique, and there was so much space – but not any more. It’s just not the same.”

According to a local property analyst, who told the Daily Mail that around 40 homes could sit on the land, it’s worth quite a bit.

The Zammit family have turned down huge offers (7News)

They told the publication: “The land is probably worth around $60 million if it was developed now.

“Even if someone paid them $40 million for it, the developer stands to make at least $20 million.

“And given the way Sydney home prices continue to soar, even a price tag of $60 million would return the developer a substantial profit by the time the homes were finally approved, constructed and sold.

“They must really love that home to ignore that kind of money.”

Indeed, they must.

Neighbours have also stood firmly by the Zammits after their decision to stay in their home went public, and praised them for not giving in to financial temptation.

The house is located in Sydney, Australia (7News)

One said: “I’m very happy they’ve refused to sell – it means we have a cul-de-sac which is much safer for our kids – and their big lawn next to us makes it feel like we’ve got so much space.

“Our neighbours don’t get that because the other houses are so close together. We’re very grateful! I hope they stay.”

Estate agent Taylor Bredin, who works for Ray White Quakers Hill, also agrees that they’ve made the right call.

He said: “The fact that most people sold out years and years ago, these guys have held on. All credit to them.”

Watching Home Alone over the years, there has been one question bugging fans for the nearly 35 years since it came out – how the f*ck did they afford that house?

The family, who primarily are presented to be middle class Americans, is huge, which would cause a large amount of spend.

Even given the fact that Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) was left behind is a result of the massive family that they are supporting, yet somehow, they are also able to afford a huge house.

There’s no shortage of fan theories behind it, with some on TikTok even speculating that Peter McCallister (John Heard) was a Chicago mob boss – even providing ‘evidence’ to back it up.

Catherine O’Hara, who played Kevin’s mom, even gave her two cents on fan theories behind the McCallister’s wealth earlier this year.

However, Chris Columbus, the director of Home Alone (not the explorer), has finally revealed why in a recent interview.

The director, who also went on to direct the sequel and the first two Harry Potter films, spoke recently on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter, the magazine’s awards podcast.

Whilst appearing on the podcast, Columbus was asked about the internet’s long held debate over how they could afford the house.

John Heard and Catherine O’Hara in Home Alone (20th Century Studios)

He said: “Back then, John [Hughes, the writer] and I had a conversation about it, and we decided on what the jobs were.”

He went on to say that Catherine O’Hara’s Kate McCallister was ‘a very successful fashion designer’, which he said was made clear via the mannequins in the house’s basement.

He stated of the dad’s job: “The father could have, based on John Hughes own experience, worked in advertising, but I don’t remember what the father did”.

The only profession that was ruled out though was criminal, as he said: “Not organized crime — even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago”.

This, of course, caused more conversation than it addressed, as now every Home Alone fan is speculating as to what Kevin’s dad does.

The house Columbus *insists* wasn’t paid for with organised crime (20th Century Studios)

One commented on Twitter: “’Not Organized Crime’ Exactly what a mobster would say,” while another said: “The dad was a hitman. Look at how good Kevin was at preparing traps. Runs in the family.”

A third commented: “In our time, this seems like an unaffordable luxury, but in the ’90s, it was an achievable reality”.

This is ultimately, the big difference as to why in 1990 two middle class people could afford a luxurious house like the one in Home Alone, and now it’s far less likely.

In 1990, the average cost of a house in the US was $151,200, according to the Federal Reserve Economic Data. In 2024, the average cost is $420,400.

In this time, wages have barely risen in comparison, while in 1990, the average wages were $50,200 which, despite the massive change in house prices, has only gone up to $62,027 in the US.

In essence, want to know why it’s so crazy that the iconic Home Alone house Kevin fortifies from intruders is afforded by two middle class parents?

Blame capitalism.