[Thanks, everyone, for entering—Keri is the winner!]
Family movies are one of the great joys of the Christmas season: It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Polar Express, A Christmas Story, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Chances are, your family watches your favorites together year after year. I’ve learned over the years that the familiarity of traditions is one of the greatest gifts we give our children.
Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas unless we watch Linus answer Charlie Brown’s question: What’s Christmas all about?
Years ago Bryan and I started another family movie tradition which keeps our kids from waking us up in the wee hours before dawn on Christmas morning. It’s a win-win for everyone and maybe it will work for you.
Each year our kids unwrap a movie (or two, or three) at bedtime on Christmas Eve. When they wake up in the morning middle of the night, they watch them before knocking on our door.
We choose movies we think they’ll love, and long ones too—one year we gave them the complete first season of the Batman TV series from the ’60s! (At 856 minutes, it’s the only Christmas morning movie gift they didn’t completely finish before waking us up.)
{We like the Blu-ray + DVD + Digital movie sets: one for the house, one for the car, and one for anywhere and always: you can’t lose or damage a digital copy and after you register it, you can access it wherever there’s wifi.}
The kids start Christmas early—they’re too excited to sleep!—and we get to snooze a little longer.
The Man Who Invented Christmas
In support of the new film The Man Who Invented Christmas, which releases in theaters on November 22, I’m running an early holiday giveaway of some favorite family films to add to your collection!
Film Synopsis:
The Man Who Invented Christmas tells the magical journey that led to the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer), Tiny Tim and other classic characters from A Christmas Carol. Directed by Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), the film shows how Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) mixed real life inspirations with his vivid imagination to conjure up unforgettable characters and a timeless tale, forever changing the holiday season into the celebration we know today.
Comment for a chance to win family favorites for your library!
This giveaway includes a DVD combo-pack of the following movies: The Sound of Music, Beauty and the Beast, and A Christmas Carol. Comment on this post for your chance to win.
What’s your family’s favorite Christmas movie or Christmas movie tradition?
This is an awesome idea, Dawn! We always do leave movies from ‘Santa’, but we may have to start giving them to them on Christmas Eve!
We have our favorites, too, that we can’t get through the season without watching! We really enjoy our Christmas movies!
Thank you, Dawn!
xoxo
Our sons and their families enjoy movie nights. They are all big movie buffs. I know they would enjoy this prize.
We love to gather for Family movies, especially at Christmas. The boys are never too old for the Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch, Rudolph, and for mom, The Little Drummer Boy. Tradition, memories and the warmth of snuggling together with a cup of hot chocolate.
Sandy, my mom rolled her rs singing The Little Drummer Boy: pa rrrrrum pum pum pum. That song (and show) still make me cry. That’s a great one!
Wow, Dawn, what a great idea! Where were you when I was raising Sheridan? Granted, she didn’t get a movie to occupy her on Christmas morning before we awoke, but we always watched Christmas movies, spreading them out over Advent and into the early New Year. It’s such a fun way to spend time as a family. In fact, we just watched “Miracle on 34th Street” last night. While it begins with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it is basically a Christmas story and about all those lovely “intangibles” that matter most in life. Natalie Wood is adorable in it. I don’t like the modern remake as well, yet it’s still darling. Two other movies many don’t associate with Christmas, but that have Christmas scenes and are excellent musical classics are “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “In the Good Old Summertime,” both starring Judy Garland. I think you and your readers would enjoy them. Then, there’s “A Christmas Story” of Ralphie and Randy fame. So much fun. We have a tiny “leg lamp” in your dining room window facing the street! 🙂 I am sooo looking forward to seeing the new Dickens movie starring Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame and veteran “Sound of Music” actor Christopher Plummer. It looks wonderful. And what I love is that Charles Dickens was a Christian and one of the best English storytellers in history. I love his novels. There are always strands of redemption woven throughout, and surely, the story of the transformation of Ebeneezer Scrooge is one of rebirth. I read the novelette every year at Christmas, and would highly recommend this to your readers. You catch things that moviemakers don’t have time to incorporate. Another wonderful Christmas story is “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote, not a Christian. It is a poignant, lyrical story and well worth one’s time. For a lovely book of Christmas readings, I’d recommend Winter Song: Christmas readings by Christian authors Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw . . . and for classic poetry lovers, “Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany” by British Anglican poet Malcolm Guite (a poet recommended to me by my dear author friend Christin Ditchfield Lazo.) He also gives commentary on each poem. Thank you so much for sharing your family tradition, Dawn, for the movie ideas, and for the great give-away! Sounds wonderful!
Love
Lynn
Hooray for family friendly movies!!
I love that idea! We always watch Elf and anything we can find on Netflix!
Keri, you’re the winner!
Our family has several Christmas movie favorites, but the one we likely enjoy the most is Miracle on 34th Street, the 1947 version with Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, and Natalie Wood. (I think it’s cool that Natalie Wood goes on to play Maria in another movie favorite, West Side Story. )
Love these movie ideas!!! Can’t wait for some down time so we can enjoy them this season!
Holiday Inn is our family favorite. (Although we have many.) My husband introduced me to this classic on our first “real” date almost 24 years ago! Yes, it’s in black and white, but it has Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and it’s the first time the song “White Christmas” was in a film. The kids (all 7) love watching it together with us, and remembering Christmas pasts.
My families favorite Christmas movie is Mickey’s Christmas Carol. We watch it every year. Thanks for the giveaway.
These are all amazing movies! We are still creating our family traditions but so far reading Christmas stories every night, watching Christmas movies, and baking holiday cookies are our favorites!
My family is obsessed with White Christmas!! We all quote it constantly. My whole extended family went to see it in theaters 2 years ago.
Our favorite movie is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
My favorite is The Santa Clause, I watch it every year.
We always watch The Christmas Shoes series – a tear jerker. It reminds us of what we most take for granted – each other.
We enjoy watching Elf and Love Actually during the holidays.
I always loved a Christmas carol .