--- title: Home Alone Fan Theory About Peter and Kevin Goes Viral description: Was there a secret mastermind behind Kevin McAllister's very bad Christmas vacation? canonical: https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-16T22:08:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:48:51.056Z og:title: This Theory About "Home Alone" Will Blow Your Mind og:description: Was there a secret mastermind behind Kevin McAllister's bad Christmas vacation? og:url: https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cbde803982817d8/698870f40a4a22acfd9c7066/home-alone_79f5a892.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3005 og:image:height: 1690 og:image:alt: Home-Alone-Facts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Theory About "Home Alone" Will Blow Your Mind twitter:description: Was there a secret mastermind behind Kevin McAllister's bad Christmas vacation? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cbde803982817d8/698870f40a4a22acfd9c7066/home-alone_79f5a892.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # You May Never See _Home Alone_ the Same Way After Hearing This Viral Theory > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Nov 16, 2017 10:08 PM UTC  Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone Twentieth Century Fox by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Nov 16, 2017 10:08 PM UTC If you have ever watched the [John Hughes](http://time.com/4105161/home-alone-1990/?iid=sr-link8) Christmas classic, _Home Alone_, and wondered how the family could leave poor little Kevin home alone to defend the house from burglars while celebrating the saddest Christmas ever, a Reddit thread may have the answer. In the film, eight-year old [Kevin McCallister](http://time.com/4111768/home-alone-25th-anniversary/?iid=sr-link9) ([Macaulay Culkin](http://time.com/3627878/macaulay-culkin-pizza-underground-video/?iid=sr-link3)) was sent to his attic bedroom for being naughty. At first watch (or even fifth) it appears that the McCallister family wakes up late for the airport, rushes out the door to catch their plane to Paris, and in the hubbub somehow everyone, including his own parents, don’t realize that Kevin has been left behind. However, a clip of the film popped up on the [Movie Details](https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/) thread on Reddit, and is leading some fans to speculate that the true culprit behind the blunder was Kevin’s own father. In the clip, the family is [eating pizza](http://time.com/4103131/home-alone-uber-eats-little-neros-pizza/?iid=sr-link10) and when some soda is spilled, [Mr. McCallister](http://time.com/4902496/home-alone-john-heard-cardiac-arrest/?iid=sr-link4) helps clean up. However, he doesn’t just clean up the pizza and plates and napkins, but manages to throw Kevin’s plane ticket into the trash, too. It’s a shocking blunder, not just because a plane ticket ended up in the trash, but also because of the fact that they were eating pizza over their airplane tickets (who thought that was a good idea?) and because Mr. McCallister, who is successful enough to be able to afford to fly his entire extended family to Paris for Christmas, can’t manage to keep plane tickets in order. Some viewers are going so far as to suggest that chucking the plane ticket in the bin wasn’t a mistake though, and that Mr. McCallister threw it away to punish Kevin. “What if Peter hated Kevin just as much as Frank did, only he was better at hiding it?” wrote one suspicious mind on Reddit. Watch the clip and decide for yourself: innocent mistake or ingenious punishment? Either way, it’s poor travel planning. Even if this isn’t a revelation for superfans of the classic, it’s the perfect excuse to go down the rabbit hole again this holiday season. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/"},"headline":"You May Never See Home Alone the Same Way After Hearing This Viral Theory","datePublished":"2017-11-16T22:08:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:48:51.056Z","description":"Was there a secret mastermind behind Kevin McAllister's very bad Christmas vacation?","url":"https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","viral","Holidays"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cbde803982817d8/698870f40a4a22acfd9c7066/home-alone_79f5a892.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1cbde803982817d8/698870f40a4a22acfd9c7066/home-alone_79f5a892.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Home-Alone-Facts","caption":"Home Alone facts","creditText":"Twentieth Century Fox","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5027509/home-alone-theory/","name":"You May Never See Home Alone the Same Way After Hearing This Viral Theory"}}]}] ```