All weather is walking weather. By the brilliant Grace Farris.
P.S. Taking kids hiking, and holiday wreaths.
All weather is walking weather. By the brilliant Grace Farris.
P.S. Taking kids hiking, and holiday wreaths.
For those of you that love old movies, try “Christmas in Connecticut”. So lovely
I don’t pass on parenting advice any more since my kids are older now but this is 💯 me right now.
DEEPLY grateful that I’m not the only person who is constantly on project: what’s that smell?!?!?
It’s like, an extracurricular activity at my house these days for some reason, haha
She might google “hygge”and just reading about it makes her feel cozy.
Oh man, I have done every one of of these things in the past week! I am going through a tough time on the relationship front and coping partially by leaning heavy into the holidays. This is 100% me right now and I’m ok with that.
❤️
Thought I was off the hook, since I’m not a mom – but then I read the “smell better” project. So guilty!
Does anyone have any good Christmas movie ideas for young kids that are fun for adults to watch, too? (Bonus points for being on Disney plus or Netflix.) We tried Polar Express last year and it was just unceasing peril and creepy adult figures. My husband and I kept making eyebrows raised eye contact, not understanding how every single possible crisis got approved to be included. It was so strange. We would love one to watch every year but that ain’t it!
Polar Express is the weirdest Christmas movie!! The weird ghost thing on the roof of the train? When I was a teacher we would only play it until he Hot Chocolate song and call it a day.
I currently love Rudolph, Frosty, or Charlie Brown Christmas toddlers. My toddler likes that she knows the songs.
Muppet Christmas Carol!!!!
A Christmas Story (from 1983) is the best! It was my brother’s and my favorite movie as children and it is hilarious from an adult perspective.
Hey, depends on the age of the kids and your tastes, but with our kids these are always hits:
– Elf
– Christmas Chronicles (Kurt Russell, Netflix, not bad)
– Nightmare Before Christmas
– The Muppet Christmas Carol
Matt Haig, the author of The Midnight Library (also a great book btw), wrote a kids Christmas book that was just turned into a movie on Netflix. It is “A Boy Called Christmas” and has Maggie Smith and Kristen Wiig in it, it was pretty fun!
“Klaus” is an Academy-Award nominated animated film on Netflix that is wonderful for both kids and adults!
Eloise at Christmastime is my absolute favorite Christmas movie and I watch it several times a year haha. It is so delightful. Julie Andrews plays a nanny that is basically the opposite of Mary Poppins and I just love every bit of it.
My husband I both enjoy the newest Grinch movie. Benedict Cumberbatch, Rashida Jones -it’s pretty cute.
The Grinch–the 2018 Animated version. It appeals to my five & two year old and there’s some humor in it for adults too.
I grew up watching A Muppet Family Christmas every year! The best.
@Maryn, OMG yes!! I love finding other Muppet Family Christmas fans. My family would watch it every year. We had taped what was probably the original broadcast on VHS. We can recite almost every line. It’s sooo good. Sadly hard to find a good quality copy to watch. We have recently started streaming someone else’s taped VHS version on YouTube.
Jingle Jangle on Netflix! A wonderful story focused on black characters, visually amazing, well acted and great music.
Arthur Christmas on Netflix is sweet and funny. I enjoyed watching it with my young kids. (The Grandpa Santa character made me laugh).
Just watched Polar Express last night with my 4yo, and yes, so bizarre! She was incredibly absorbed, but also terrified. Oops!
Polar Express IS creepy.
Favorites for wide age range, from preschool through adult: Arthur Christmas, Elf, and Prep & Landing (1 & 2). Prep & Landing will be on Disney+.
I also genuinely enjoy watching the Curious George Christmas special, Grinch (original and 2019), and Veggie Tales Saint Nicholas (we’re not religious, but it’s still awesome).
YES, L, WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE ROOF! It’s the final straw for me. We were totally captivated (fooled) by the opening scene and thought it would be great.
Lala, I quote A Christmas Story all the time and no one ever knows what I’m talking about. (A + + + + + + + !!!!, you’ll shoot your eye out, ho ho ho, it says frah-gee-lay, must be italian, etc) But I was totally delighted when the kids got one of those 99 cent advent calendars from TJs and there was a little riddle to crack a code and the message was “Be sure to drink your hot coco” !!!!!!!!!
Thank you for the suggestions friends!
The Snowman. It’s beautiful animation, sweet, wholesome story. No dialogue, just music, and we watched it with our very young kids who now are adults, and they still love it.
Agreed – it’s really too bad the Polar Express movie is so odd. I’ll second some of the suggestions already here: Arthur Christmas, Jingle Jangle, and Klaus. A couple of shorter options, especially nice for younger kids are Shawn the Sheep – Flight Before Xmas (Netflix) and Alien Xmas (Netflix). We recently watched the special holiday season of Blown Away (Netflix) and all of us were totally riveted by the glass blowing (and are now watching the previous, regular seasons as a family).
my kids like home alone and home alone 2, and they also LOVED the incredibly sweet, beautifully paced 30-minute movie Angela’s Christmas: https://www.netflix.com/title/80230507
Agree on the newest Grinch- my Jewish kids have watched it a zillion times and it still holds up. I love that a girl is one of the two main characters AND she does not have a romantic interest (why is that so much to ask??) and is voiced by an actual child. That is hard to find these days!
Chris van Allsburg is the original author/illustrator of The Polar Express book, as well as Jumanji, The Mystery of Harris Burdick, and several others. All of his work has a level of oddness and mystery borderline creepy and dark. Whoever wrote The Polar Express screenplay sure carried that over into the film!
Snowy Day is great one for younger kids. It has a nice pace, a soothing soundtrack and the narration is great.
Christmas Chronicles! (Kurt Russell)
We all really liked Noelle on Disney+ … I’d say if your child is 5ish or older they’d probably stick with it. Anna Kendrick is so adorable! :)
My young boys like The Grinch with Benedict Cumberbatch.
So far this year my 4 YO loved the “new” grinch (Benedict Cumberbatch) on Netflix and the “original” grinch (we have a hard DVD) and we rewatched frozen 2 as a winter theme. He is excited to watch Home Alone* and Polar express and the old Rudolph. (Rudolph does not actually hold up great) all of which he saw last year. At 3 last year he didn’t “get” elf but did enjoy the physical comedy.
One of my favourites is the old miracle on 34th street – but obviously your kids can’t really believe in Santa and watch this.
* in our house we follow Kevin McAllister’s logic when talking to mall Santa getting into car: “I know you aren’t really Santa but I also know you work for him”
Both of the Paddington movies are wonderful and universally appealing, I think! For very small children the Pooh Bear Christmas movie is perfect! My children are 6 and 4 and these films continue to be Christmastime favourites :)
I always love seeing this post each week. Spot on, once again!
This is accurate and also my childhood, winter walks in the snow with my mom and company (normally a horse or dog or both) will always be my favorite!
I have a movie suggestion for the winter mom…more reflective and poignant than festive. C’mon C’mon with River Phoenix, Gabi Hoffman and Woody Norman as the amazing Jesse.
IT WAS SOOOOO GOOD!!! And totally different than what I was expecting from previews.
ooh thank you!
Totally different than what I was expecting from previews as well; it really snuck up on me as an aunt, and I loved it. And Joaquin Phoenix’s character lives about 5 minutes from my apartment here in NYC, which was wild to see. Usually we’re just in cop shows!
10/10 agree!
Hahaha. Extremely accurate. Also she might decide it’s time to de clutter the toys before all the new ones show up.
She might have that planned for this afternoon!
She might just put them on the sidewalk in front of the house with a sign that says “Free”!
This string made me laugh out loud! Thank you!
I have different candle scents for different seasons and they don’t always burn all the way through, so I stash them under my sink. My daughter spontaneously counted them and got over 15.
I have a problem. No more purchases until 2023!
You don’t have a problem, you have a hobby, ha! Developing ‘scent stories’ for various occasions is one of my greatest pandemic achievements *pats back*