Christmas is in full swing at our house! Decor is up (what little I’m doing this year), holiday music is playing, my favorite candle is burning, and thanks to
our bright and cheery hot chocolate station, we are knocking it out of the park in the calorie category of the season as well! Ha! :) (
Kids will be fine, I however will be at the gym working off that new little tradition well into March or April at least!) Another thing that ALWAYS goes hand in hand with Christmas at our house is movie nights filled with our favorite Christmas movies! And sometimes movie afternoons and on weekends even movie mornings. :) Like many of you I’m sure, we have a fun collection going of favorite Christmas movies that we pull out every December
. The kids always get a new Christmas DVD on Christmas morning. It’s fun for them to watch after they play with their new toys while Kenny and I doze on the couch in recovery mode. I thought I’d share our collection with all of you in case you need some gift ideas. Or just
a quiet moment from the kids a little Christmas cheer on the TV this month. :)
What’s Christmas without the classics? I’ve had these since I was in highschool. I remember earning money to buy them myself! Some cartoons just never get old. :)
Then after Kenny and I were married, my mom gave me this set as a Christmas gift.
The same movies – just in an ever so fancy carrying case. I’m not ashamed to admit that I watch these with or without my children, although having the kids around makes me feel a little more legit. But really, it just isn’t Christmas without a plastic looking Abominable Snow Monster. Or without a cute toddler trying to pronounce “Abominable.”
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns
Christmas Classics – full gift set (all included)
If you have little girls, here are a four movies my girls have LOVED. They loved them when they were 2 and 4 and at ages 7 and 9 they still love them and get excited to watch them every year. Thank goodness. It will be a sad day for me when they are too cool for the Barbie movies!
Barbie in A Christmas Carol
Barbie A Perfect Christmas
Angelina Ballerina Nutcracker Sweet
Care Bears Nutcracker
Barbie in the Nutcracker (Which isn’t photographed because it has been playing over and over in the playroom this week. Lots of music and a “scary mouse King” so Kole loves this one too!)
K these next two movies are a bit on the cheesy side, but my girls LOVE them. Really fun for Elementary age kids who love dogs!
Santa Paws
Santa Buddies
We are also big fans of all of the Mickey Mouse Christmas movies. So much fun for little ones. Aside from “Mickey Saves Santa” (more for toddlers) my girls still love all of these too.
Classic Holiday Stories (my personal favorite – I adore all 3 of the cartoons on this DVD)
Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas
Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas
Mickey Saves Santa
Mickey’s Magical Christmas Snowed in at the House of Mouse
Holiday Celebration with Mickey and Pals
These are a few other random favorites that the kids look forward to every year.
A few others Kenny and I look forward to. “Elf” we’ve just seen once, but the other four we’ve been watching every December for years. I love “Miracle on 34th Street” (this newer version and the original – I love old movies!). And what’s Christmas without “It’s a Wonderful Life?” BEST movie ever made. I’ve usually seen this four or five times by the time Christmas rolls around. It’s my favorite gift wrapping movie. Kenny and I adore “The Family Man”. We always call out to each other in random places “We have a house in Jersey!” I know. We’re dorks. And while I think “Fred Claus” is a bit cheesy, it’s Kenny’s all time favorite. I tease him for laughing so hard while he watches it each year but then at the end when all the elves watch the snow globe of families on Christmas morning I always cry! Then he teases me. :)
Nothing like a fun Christmas movie to put you in the mood for the holidays! Then in January there’s nothing like a messy pile of Christmas movies to put you in the mood to organize!
:)
Do you and your family have a favorite Christmas movie that isn’t on my list?
*affiliate links used
xoxo, Erin
Love all the movies this time of year. And, have so enjoyed the Saturday night ones on Hallmark this season as well.
I always watch Family Stone and White Christmas!
I love Christmas classics, and I think you covered all of my favorites. –Hanna Lei
Great movie list!!! Love, Love “The Family Man”! You are missing our favorite though, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”!!! :O)
My husband would say Die Hard…..lol
Lauren – my mom, sister and I all watched a Hallmark Christmas special over Thanksgiving. We were laughing at the cheesy acting in the beginning and by the end we were all bawling! We keep texting each other about the latest Hallmark Christmas movies now! Ha ha.. :)
How did I forget White Christmas and National Lampoon’s! Those are both great ones that we need to add to the collection!
Jennifer – That cracked me up! Your husband and mine would get along famously! :)
Hi Erin,
I have been a long time follower of your beautiful blog but this is my first time commenting :)
I just could not leave out a Muppets Christmas Carol. It was my favourite as a child and still is AND my children like it. It’s the only one this year to have had a second run through :)
And I also like the Barbie Christmas Carol. I have been known to watch the both of them without any children present… :)
Thank you for your beautiful blog. It is such a pleasure to have something like this to brighten my days when life gets hectic. We have been renovating for over a year now so I sympathise with your struggles to fit this in with the whole house building thing :)
Much love,
Alison
Alison what a sweet thing to say! It means so much to me that you enjoy my blog. We’ve never watched Muppets Christmas Carol! I’m going to order it for this Christmas. Thank you so much for taking a minute to say hello. Your sweet comment made my day! Good luck with all of your renovations!
Great post! We have watched and loved alot of those! I have been wondering about “What a wondeful life” Thanks for the recommendation. Our new movie this year is Arthur Christmas which the kids have already watched 3 times.
Hi Erin! Two of my all-time favorite movies are centered around Christmas, so I consider them Christmas movies. “Sleepless In Seattle” and “The Holiday” are such feel-good movies – I just love them both. My husband and I watch them several times each Christmas season.
I am so glad to see your list of your favorites! I will definitely be adding some to our collection!
We have an entire Grinch Day at school with our fourth graders because it’s my favorite movie (both versions) and I love the message. We make a Grinch lap book, do Grinch math, wear green and have Grinch floats. This year we are also making Grinch fruit skewers. What did we ever do before Pinterest?!
Erin…if you haven’t heard of Boz the Green Bear, he would be a GREAT addition…especially for your little fellow.
I have included a link to his Christmas DVD if you want to check him out…he is very educational, entertaining, faith-based, and NOT annoying like a certain purple dinosaur…
We have all of his DVDs and my children loved them…a wowiebozowee Christmas is the name of the Christmas ones…
Here is the link:
http://store.bozthebear.com/collections/dvds/products/a-wowiebozowee-christmas-dvd
Thanks for all of the great ideas!! Merry Chrismas!!!
Also, if you are in the mood for a movie that is along the Hallmark lines, my daughter and I enjoyed watching Christmas movies on netflix during Christmas break… two I would recommend are The Christmas Angel and The Heart of Christmas…
Thank you for this list! We have a lot of these, but you reminded me of the Chipmunks. We have all the girlie ones, but our little guy needs some “dude” movies! Hopefully the wild man will be entertained by this for a minute! Or two!!!
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Gremlins (may not sound very holiday-ish but it is set at Christmas….my family loves the special effects, lol.) Not for kids though. Your girls might be nearing the age for my all time favorite, The Nativity Story. Such a well-done movie! I cry every time.
Oh you guys are making me SO excited!
Ailsa – if you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life yet you’re in for a treat!
Jane! You need to move in with me. :) I adore both of those movies but never thought of adding them to our Christmas collection! I’m going to buy them this year! And “You’ve Got Mail.” Another favorite that has a bit of Christmas in it. Thanks for the fun suggestion!
Jennie – That Grinch day sounds like too much fun. Makes me miss teaching school! And I feel the same way about Pinterest. :)
Jenny – I’m looking into both of your suggestions! Thank you so much!
Rhonda – we go through the same thing here. Kole always wants to watch “My Little Pony” on TV! We’ve probably scarred him for life with all of our non stop girl. I’ve been working to incorporate more boy movies and toys too!
Ashley – Gremlins! Now there’s one I haven’t seen in a while. :) I need to watch “Then Nativity Story.” Sounds so good!
Thank you so much everyone! I’m LOVING all of these fun movie suggestions!
I’m loving all the suggestions, but I second Alisa’s “Arthurs Perfect Christmas” mostly because it showcases different traditions, religions and how important family is and the real meaning of gift giving….I promise you will not be disappointed. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I think it might rank right up there as my favorite…
I also enjoy Christmas films, especially ones based on true stories. I’m not into cartoons but I might try a couple that you’ve suggested.
One film I really like – although the name doesn’t sound too great – is Christmas on Division Street. It’s about a boy (the one from The Wonder Years) who makes friends with an elderly homeless man named Glebe who reminds him of his Grandad who had recently died. There’s always one part that makes me choke up.
Another one is Nora’s Christmas gift & Mr Kruger’s Christmas. With Mr Kruger’s Christmas tho I still don’t understand why everything is based around Christmas eve.
On a tv channel here, channel 5, they’ve been showing some lovely Christmas films, especially on a Saturday.
I also enjoy watching the Christmas episodes on DVD of Little House on The Prairie & The Waltons. I love to watch those.
One film I plan to buy soon is Christmas with The Kranks. It’s sooooo funny:)
Thank you for this post & for your brill DVD ideas:)
It’s 11.12.13. today here in the uk, I’ll be taking loads of pix to remember the date. (I know this was in November for the US)
Authur Christmas, the kids will love it! Thanks for the list we watched Santa Paws for the first time tonight.very cute.love your blog! Merry christmas from Perth Western Australia :-)
This is embarassing but I’ve been watching Care Bears Nutcracker since I was a kid (it came out the year after I was born) and we totally have a copy that I always watch with our son. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0928026/
I love it!
Well, I have to say we love the Jim Cary version of The Grinch. :o) On a different note, I’m a candle lover and wanted to know what your favorite candle is that your burning. :o) BTW, your house is stunning!
Our family favorite has always been The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young!
I agree with the Jim Carrey Grinch. It’s a good one!
That’s a lot of Christmas movies!! Good ideas – we have several but none of the Mickey ones, I will have to scout for those.
I just watched Fred Claus (by myself – hee hee) last weekend on TV for the first time – it was pretty cute.
Polar Express is our family “tradition” movie – we watch it at night after the presents have been opened. And my husband and I have had the “National Lampoons” vacation movie tradition since we met! We were watching it with the kids for a couple years but then realized they didn’t understand most of the humor and some of it wasn’t appropriate for little kids anyhow so thus came along Polar Express! Ha! Maybe when they are older we will resume that one. :)
Merry Christmas!
I love your list of Christmas movies. My favorites growing up as a kid was A Christmas Story, Santa Claus (1985 version) and Home Alone besides the classics and oh Charlie Brown Christmas. My kids favorites are Polar Express, Leapfrog Christmas, Thomas the train Merry Christmas, The Muppets Letters to Santa, as well as the Elf on the Shelf movie( all time favorite in our household!!!))) Thanks for always putting a smile on my face. Your the BEST! To bad we didn’t live in the same town.��
Arthur’s Christmas is so good (not the PBS Arthur) and Hallmarks Saint Maybe, and The Walton’s Homecoming.
I can’t believe Elf is the one you’ve only watched once!! That is my second all time favorite christmas movie, after White Christmas of course.
Another good recent one was Arthur Christmas! I enjoyed it as an adult but as it’s an animated kids movie I’m sure the younger ones would like it as well ;)
Ok Erin! I’m right there with ya on loving old movies. It’s a Wonderful Life always makes me cry at the end, such a wonderful reminder of what’s really important! Elf is hilarious, give it another go. We also like The Santa Claus with Tim Allen. For the adults- A Christmas Story is a favorite of mine, and Christmas Vacation always gives us a laugh. :-)
Hugs,
amber
Our family favourite is Nativity! which is about a school nativity play in the UK. Hilarious and my kids love it. However it doesn’t seem very well known outside of the UK. We were put onto it by some friends. It has Martin Freeman in it as the main character (he is Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit).
“Prancer” is one of my all time favorites, but you will need a box of tissues…very sweet!!
We love “Scrooged” and – yes! – “A Christmas Story”. Watch “Elf” more…our kids love it, too. Every now and then, throughout the year, they will say lines from that movie to each other, as in “You sit on a throne of lies!” or “Cotton headed ninnymuggins!”
Oh my goodness, you have more Christmas movies than there are days to count down to Christmas- does that mean you have to/get to watch them at other times of year? :o)
here in Australia a lot of people have european background so we like to do a “Christmas in July” event so we can enjoy all of our favourite Christmas foods when theyre in season and the weather matches (kind of, it’s nearly always sunny here in Perth but we try) and i love the excuse to play Christmas music and Christmas dvds.
I have to admit though that i havent seen most of those movies (im not much of a sit-down-for-two-hours person so it has to be a realllly good film to tempt me)! I must rectify that. Probably starting with “its a wonderful life”!! I hear thats a real Christmas classic.
Erin, I was so glad to see that you have Twas the Night Before Christmas! No one has ever seemed to have heard of this version but I just love it, and cry when the clock works at the end :) One of my boys’ favorites is Disney’s Prep and Landing. So clever. I believe it’s on this Monday night on ABC but we got the blu-ray this year also. I enjoy it as much as my boys! Enjoy your Christmas!
My number one favorite Christmas movie is called Prep & Landing and Prep & Landing Naught vs. Nice! This movie is made by disney and is so funny and cute!!! Your missing out if you don’t have this one in your collection!
Also love your new house, it is good to see what your up to these days!
You forgot Home Alone!! 1&2 are the best. Also, Charlie Brown Christmas.