Can anybody recommend a nice Christmas movie to watch with a kid? We’ve done the Grinch, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the Wizard of Oz. I tried suggesting Home Alone but when I described the premise, Klara got scandalized.
What else do people watch on Christmas that’s kid-friendly?
Muppet Christmas Carol.
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There is Die Hard but that is not kid-friendly. :p
How about Wonderful Life.
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I love Die Hard. But we need something sweet and for children.
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Princess Bride has to be considered, hands down, one of the greatest kid-friendly movies ever though, unlike Die Hard, it is not a Christmas movie. Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is technically a Christmas movie. I was really impressed with how they handled Father Christmas.
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The Sound of Music. Not Christmas-themed but some people watch it around Christmas time and it is kid friendly.
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A Christmas Movie holds up pretty well if, like us, you don’t have a TV and aren’t subjected to it every Christmas. It’s a Wonderful Life is traditional but not sure if it is comprehensible to small children? nothing objectionable there.
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The Elf (which I don’t like but apparently popular) and Envhanted (which I do because of the wonderful Amy Adams).
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Typos…ugh! Given that I cannot see what I am typing because of weird display of Safari webpages on my old (but still functional) iPad, I am not as distraught as I would be in normal circumstances.
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Elf is very silly but it’s completely kid friendly and I find it charming. As my 3 year old niece announced “It’s funny because he is toooo big!!”. So it’s fun to see littler ones sort of “get” the jokes.
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Oh yes, she loves that. But she’s seen that 5 times at least with her Dad.
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I recommend a Charlie Brown Christmas. It has a very sweetly religious ending.
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Also the music is great!
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The snowman
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This is good, but sad! Make sure you’re in the right mood for it!
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I love A Christmas Story, a failure when released that gained a devoted following within a few years. Culturally it will be weird for all of you, though no time is given it seems to be set in the 1930s and follows a little boy who knows exactly what he wants for Christmas (an air rifle named after a cowboy hero on radio) and what seems like a vast conspiracy of adults to keep him from getting it…
The thing is it’s more aimed at adults than kids and some parts might go over Klara’s head or just seem weird (literally washing out a kid’s mouth with soap, the main character getting played by a corporation, an inappropriate lamp….)
If she can read subtitles Ma Nuit Chez Maud is a great introduction to cinema as art (the main theme might go over her head but still, great movie).
Gremlins
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Jingle All the Way, A Muppet Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, The Santa Clause, Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf.
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The ORIGINAL version of “A Miracle on 34th Street” (1947), a delightful movie that until a few years ago was rerun every Christmas season on television. It’s in B&W, but still much better than the technicolor 1994 version, which botched the courtroom explanation proving that Santa Claus was real.
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Arthur Christmas is a great 3D animated movie that is funny an poignant. Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger is funny too.
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The Christmas Chronicles seems cute. It’s on Netflix.
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My son (29 but likes kids movies) and I are watching a bunch of Christmas movies right now. We really liked Klaus, which has a different take on the origin of Santa Claus. Noelle is cute – about Santa’s daughter.
There is also the old stop-motion Rudolph and the old animated Frosty the Snowman (but not the recent one – it’s not good).
A Christmas Story ________________________________
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Or more kid friendly: The Year without a Santa Claus ________________________________
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The 1951 version of “A Christmas Carol” (the one with Alastair Sim).
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Babes in Toyland. I like the one from the 80s but it’s a remake of the 1960s version. My daughter just turned 8 and loves both!
A Christmas Story is a long-time family favorite.
I loved Mickey’s Christmas Carol (retelling of Dickens) as a child. The classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was another I still adore. And Charlie Brown Christmas, of course!
We also love Home Alone so maybe next year she will want to try it.
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Stickman is a nice 30-min kids’ Christmas piece, based on the book by Julia Donaldson. Also 30 min is The Wrong Trousers (Wallace and Gromit) – not Christmas themed but very charming and we often watch it at this time of year.
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I have never seen the Snowman. So take this with perhaps a grain of salt…….But the reason I have not seen the entire film is because the clips/stills I have seen and the reviews I have read (it’s a bit of an “art house film”) made it quite clear that the Snowman is blatantly and intentionaly depressing. FTR, I personally believe that it is healthy to acknowledge (on occasion) our mortality– and believe it’s good for children to have imaginative spaces to work through the fundamental unfathomability of the human condition (it’s why there are so many children’s stories about orphans for instance.) That being said, the Snowman is waaaayyyyy too much. Like it ends with an image of the child weeping over the melted remains of his Snowman friend. You have mentioned that Klara is a sensitive child. I was too (still am) very sensitive. This movie would have truly disturbed me as a little one.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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