I'm also aware of established weekly activities, like Photo Friday and Illustration Friday, and I'm considering joining those cults as well. But I'd also like to start my own tradition. And we watch lots of movies. So, there ya go.
This week, "The Polar Express" because I think I'll focus mainly on holiday movies for the next few weeks, other than when we go to see Harry Potter and Narnia, then I'll do those too.
The movie is about a little boy with no name, who isn't sure that he believes in Santa. He is pretty darn skeptical. On Christmas Eve, a train shows up in his front yard and Tom Hanks, the conductor, greets him and tells him they're going to the North Pole. I'd like to take a moment to urge the parents reading (how many non parent readers do I have? any?) to discuss with your children that if a train or any other vehicle shows up in the yard in the middle of the night, they should NOT go with the conductor/driver/whatever no matter where they say they are going. So, he goes and he has lots of adventures on the train. And hot chocolate. And you should also remind the children that it is NOT safe to walk on top of a moving train. Oh, and I also recommend actually having some hot chocolate handy before popping the movie in.
They do get to the North Pole where Boy and his friends have more adventures and then they see Santa. And then they go home. I'm leaving out the details so as not to ruin it for you. Its a lot of fun though, and this is the first movie that Mikayla every sat through and watched, start to finish, in the theater. Sure, she'd watched "Ralphie" (Thats "A Christmas Story" to most of us) a few million times, but not in the theater.
The movie doesn't necessarily encourage or discourage believing in Santa. Santa and the creepy man on top of the train both say things that lean on the "there is no real santa" side of things, the conductor (by the way, Tom Hanks plays all of these) says things on the more "pro Santa" side. The conductor says, "Sometimes the things that you can't see are the most real." Or something like that. This is Aaric's main argument that Santa IS real. (we aren't a santa believing family, but Aaric chooses to believe anyway.) But Santa points out, "The spirit of Christmas is in your heart." And you can even buy a stuffed Santa that says this over and over and over. We have 2. So, no matter what you're teaching your kids about Santa, this movie won't corrupt their little brains. Some movies I've seen make me wonder how the Santa-believing kids feel watching them. Like "The Santa Clause" - there's just so much in it about how Santa ISN'T real - doesn't it make them wonder, "why do all of these people not believe? maybe there's something to it..."
But anyway, we love this movie. Its faced paced and keeps your attention. Its full of magic that could possibly be explained away as a dream. and its got a train ride and hot chocolate and elves. And an insane amount of Tom Hanks, which is kinda weird.
AND, for those of us who are big fans of a certain actor, you may notice a couple lines from the movie that sound exactly like lines from "Pirates of the Caribbean." And one of those lines happens to be one that this actor uses in many of his movies. And I think I'd just seen Pirates not long before I saw PE, so its not like I have the whole movie memorized, it just stuck out to me. Really!
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