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Movies to get you into the spirit

by Julie Yang -- Being Savvy Honolulu

I love movies.  It's probably the one part of my life I miss the most from my pre children life.  I don't miss going out in the evening and having some drinks.  I don't even miss using the bathroom whenever I want to, alone.  But I miss going to the movies on a whim and sitting through one just to kill some time. 

I do try to take advantage of the Cry Baby Matinees available at the Consolidated Theaters (which is not going on during December judging by the fact that they haven't updated for this month on their website), but most of my Movie watching is now done at Home via whatever Netflix sends me.  Whenever I see a commercial for a movie on the television, instead of wondering when it would open in theaters, I try to calculate how long before I can see it on DVD.

But we all know it's a small price to pay for having such great little ones in our lives, right? 

Thank goodness my favorite Holiday movies are already on DVD.  This Christmas season I'm having so much fun introducing them to Noah.  He is still way young to enjoy Love Actually properly, so I'm starting him off slow.  But it's still good stuff. 

Weâ¿¿ve already watched The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  The cartoon version.  We read the Dr. Seuss books, so I had a feeling he would enjoy it, and I was right.  He was captured from the beginning.  I doubt the Jim Carey version would have the same effect.  I'll probably wait until he's a bit older to watch that one with him.

We also have that DVD collection of all those old school Christmas animated movies.  The one about Santa Claus, Frosty and Rudolph.  The ones they would play on some random night near Christmas when I was little and I'd have to beg and beg my parents to let me watch while eating my dinner in front of the TV.  We've watched Rudolph (I didn't remember an abominable snow man was such a major part of the story), and Santa Claus.  I'm pretty sure we'll end up watching Frosty this weekend.

I also plan to try Elf during a family movie night this year.  It's a gamble.  It's not animated and the central character is an adult, so Noah could totally not be interested, which means that we'll end up playing blocks with him a third of the way into the movie and us adults will finish the movie after the two kids are asleep.  At the same time, there is some animation in the beginning and I think that Noah would totally see eye to eye with Will Ferrell's character.  Noah does love maple syrup on everything. 

I can't wait until Noah and Natalie are old enough to be all warm and cozy on the couch with me watching Meet Me in St. Louis, the Family Man and It's a Wonderful Life.  It's a tradition that I plan to keep going for a long time.