Saturday, November 03, 2007

Advent Rituals and Holiday Movies Ideas...Please help

I know this seems early but it seems that however early the planning begins still I am not ready to pull it all off.

Our Advent ritual involves special things Zoe and I do together for 25 evenings before Solstice (bake cookies, make cards, make a balsam reef, make truffles, go and see holiday lights at the park, make a ginger bread house, make ornaments, decorate the tree, each chose and buy a special ornament that represents out year, sing carols, creating an edible bird house, make a mantel snow village, and read a different holiday book per night etc). For one of those nights we have a hot cocoa and video night ......I am looking for recommendations.....Here is what we have watched so far

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

Ezra Jack Keats' The Little Drummer Boy... and 4 More Holiday Stories and the Bonus one of the 4 more is "The Tomten" By Astrid Lindgren one of our all time favs books!!

I am trying to decide which movie we will watch this year. What are your families favorite holiday movies? (Zoe is 4 and has not watched a lot mainstream movies) Have any of your seen either of the following?
A Child's Christmas in Wales
The Original Television Christmas Classics (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer / Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town / Frosty the Snowman / Frosty Returns / The Little Drummer Boy) (1969)

As soon as I get the books down from the attic I will list our Advent reading for this year. I know that Simmy over at Echoes of a Dream began a flickr group Christmas Books for Children

1 comment:

Donna said...

We love those Christmas television classics, however, I haven't shown the girls The Little Drummer Boy--if I remember correctly there is a particularly upsetting scene involving his parents dying in a fire set by robbers, he escapes, but looks back to see his mother in the window with tears rolling down her face as the flames consume her. It's probably been 25 years or more since I've seen it, so I could be wrong on the details but I remember my sister being very upset when we watched it as kids. I think the death of his parents is to establish his hatred of humanity and then his subsequent love after meeting the baby Jesus. The others are delightful, my favorite is Santa Claus is Coming to Town.