We need a little Christmas. Right this very minute.

And we don’t need the Fockers or Tim Allen to take us to that funny, familiar, emotional movie Christmas that we’ve wanted from Hollywood ever since “It’s a Wonderful Life” introduced an angel named Clarence.

“The Family Stone” is a holiday hybrid, a romantic tragi-comedy with a little bit of everything, including politics. It is Blue State sophistication meets Red State sentiment. And if it goes down like that last bite of inedible fruitcake, that’s by design.

Sarah Jessica Parker is Meredith, the high-powered and high-maintenance conservative whom Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) wants to bring home to Mom (Diane Keaton).

Meredith is uptight. Meredith is nervous. Meredith is a bit tactless and politically incorrect.

And Mom may not approve.

Sister Amy (Rachel McAdams), the girl with the NPR totebag, leaves no doubt.

“I hate her!”

She tries to rally opposition to this Harriet Miers in their midst. Dad (Craig T. Nelson) is patient and on the fence. Thad (Ty Giordano), the gay deaf brother, and pregnant sister Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) are leaning Amy’s way.

Uptight Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) gets put on the spot when her boyfriend, Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), brings her home to meet his family during the holidays.

Only pothead documentary editor Ben (Luke Wilson) is inclined to cut the new woman some slack.

Meredith tries and fails to win them over. She tries harder and fails worse. The cracks start to show in her relationship with Everett, who was about to propose.

So she calls in the cavalry, her adorable, not-uptight, tolerant younger sister (Claire Danes), a woman who is everything she is not.

Writer-director Thomas Bezucha juggles huge, heartfelt laughs with big, heart-won tears. He’s in “Pieces of April” territory here, with holiday stress, family squabbles, terminal illness and a Christmas present so perfect that it will just break your heart.

The juggling is a bit neater than real life, but the actors make it messy. Parker is a coiled spring of nervousness and resentment; Mulroney manages nicely with his latest beau-next-door role. Wilson has never been this charming on the screen.

“You’ve got a freak flag,” he tells Meredith, as if he’s the only guy in this house who “gets” her.” “You just never fly it.”

Danes is radiant. And Keaton and Nelson have the movie’s best moments, usually tucked in the middle of some painfully awkward family dispute. Keaton’s is the first face we see, quiet, in repose, comfortable with herself and how her family has turned out.

“The Family Stone” argues with passion, and with sign language. They casually translate their conversations, even the heated ones, so that the deaf son can join in. They’re judgmental, but they have a stake in who ends up with whom and how they will carry on.

And there’s this weight of knowledge that some of them carry, and some of them carry on without.

It’s movie comfort food – a few good laughs, a few winks of recognition, a few tears. You may not want to marry into it yourself, but this “Family Stone” is a family that works.