Tim Allen, an evergreen of yule films

If it’s the holidays, then it must be the season for a Tim Allen comedy.

Over the past decade, the 51-year-old former stand-up comic, who came to fame on the long-running ABC sitcom “Home Improvement,” has starred in seven films that were released during Christmastime -- “The Santa Clause” and “The Santa Clause 2,” “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2,” “Galaxy Quest,” “For Richer or Poorer” and “Joe Somebody.” His eighth, “Christmas With the Kranks,” opens Wednesday.

Based on John Grisham’s bestselling novel “Skipping Christmas,” the family comedy finds Allen playing Luther Krank, who after his daughter joins the Peace Corps, decides to skip the traditional Christmas celebration and take his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) on a Caribbean cruise.

But it just so happens that they live on a street that takes Christmas rather seriously, and when the Kranks decide to boycott the holiday, his neighbors don’t take too kindly to their modern-day Scrooge-like behavior, especially Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd), the street’s unofficial mayor.

Taking a page out of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Luther Krank eventually discovers the true meaning of the holiday. As with most Allen holiday films, expect a lot of physical shtick and a bit of pathos thrown in to warm the heart.

Penned and produced by Chris Columbus -- who knows a thing or two about Christmas movies, having directed the holiday blockbusters “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” -- “Kranks” was directed by Revolution Studios’ head Joe Roth.

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-- Susan King