I'll Be Home for Christmas is a 1998 Christmas family film comedy film. It stars Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jessica Biel, Adam LaVorgna, Gary Cole, and Andrew Lauer. Jake Wilkinson (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is an 18-year-old boy attending Palisades Academy in California. For the past few years, he has not been home to New York for Christmas even though he always promised to make it. A few days before Christmas Eve, his father offers to give him his vintage 1957 Porsche if he is home by 6:00 p.m. Christmas Eve for Christmas dinner. Initially, Jake had traded in his plane ticket to New York for two tickets to Cabo San Lucas to take his girlfriend Allie (Jessica Biel), who is also from New York. She considers the act selfish as Jake knows Allie always returns home for Christmas. Jake reconsiders and trades the tickets back in for New York, and she forgives him. As Jake is leaving, he is taken captive by a group of bullies and abandoned in the desert dressed as Santa Claus.