Skip Christmas?

Miss all that expense, all that work, decorating, cooking, shopping and wrapping? Dodge all that forced good cheer, bonhomie, brotherly love?

Where do we sign up?

“Christmas with the Kranks” is about a couple of empty-nesters who try to do just that. For 40 minutes, Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis struggle with a can’t-miss concept and a can’t-get-it-right script in this flat-footed holiday comedy. As the Kranks, they resist pushy neighbors, humbug-muttering colleagues and friends and assorted merchants who find it downright un-American to not buy into what has become the ultimate consumerist con — “the holidays.”

As the title of the John Grisham novel this is based on puts it, they’re “skipping Christmas.” They want to go on a cruise instead.

Then the parable loses what little nerve it has. The Kranks change their minds and have to make amends to all the people so furious at their opting out of Christmas. A comedy on life support pretty much chokes to death on the ghosts of fruitcakes past.

It starts well enough. Luther and Nora are depressed about packing their daughter off to the Peace Corps. But it’s late fall, and Nora is already on Christmas cruise control. She’s going through the motions — gifts to buy, meals and a party to plan.

It’s Luther who adds up all that expense up and decides that they’d be money ahead if they took a cruise to the Caribbean instead. He talks Nora into it. Barely.

Tim Allen portrays Luther Krank in the Columbia Pictures holiday release, Christmas

But when word gets out among the decorations-obsessed neighbors (each with matching 7-foot Frosty the Snowman statues on the roof) among the merchants, the Cub Scouts who sell trees, the cops who peddle calendars, the friends who rely on their party — well, the mistletoe hits the fan.

Luther’s drawn a line in the snow, and he’s not backing down. The battle is on, with neighbors like Dan Aykroyd and M. Emmet Walsh leading the “Ho ho ho or else” charge.

The script has little potential to begin with. Still, Curtis is over the top, wholly committed to the role, even donning a skimpy bikini for a tanning bed session in one scene. She’s making lots of statements about not having a 25-year-old’s body anymore. Gutsy.

Allen, left to his own devices, is a bonafide holiday ham. “Home Alone” director Chris Columbus produced this slop. He and former-studio-chief-turned-director Joe Roth (who ignored lots of ‘Don’t quit your day job’ advice) turn Allen lose. That means too many scenes of Allen overdoing unfunny bits of “business,” eating mandarin oranges after getting Botox injections (he spills them, har-de-har).

Christmas with the Kranks* 1/2 Find showtimes, trailers and more on the movie

So what if this is about twice as funny as the disastrous “Surviving Christmas”? Between those two lumps of coal, you may want to skip Christmas yourself this year.