A Reliable Holiday Movies + Kept Holiday Traditions

The useful part is the sizing, the storage, and what still worked after the first month. Sometimes the focus of the holidays veers so much toward gifts and decorating that it's easy to lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas and the importance of connecting with family and friends. Watching Christmas movies as a family and taking part in our holiday traditions are two of the preferred things about the season. Today The household has gathered together all of the best Christmas movies and new approaches for family traditions so you can make the most of your holidays too!

A Reliable Holiday Movies

I definitely have a short list of holiday movie favorites but I knew there were some I was probably missing out on so I asked on Instagram for everyone to pleas share their kept holiday movies too! The household has compiled everyone's favorites into the list below so you can find a new movie or two to enjoy! 

My list of reader faves:

Comedies: Christmas Vacation | Elf | Home Alone | Love Actually | The Family Stone | The Holiday 

Classics: A Christmas Story | Christmas in Connecticut | Holiday Inn | It's a Wonderful Life | Miracle on 34th Street | The Shop Around The Corner | White Christmas

Cheesy (the preferred!): Love Actually | Serendipity | Sleepless in Seattle | While You Were Sleeping | Anything on the Hallmark Channel

Kids/Family: A Charlie Brown Christmas | A Christmas Candle | Frosty The Snowman | How the Grinch Stole Christmas | One Magic Christmas | Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer | The Muppet Christmas Carol | The Polar Express | The Sound of Music

Did your kept holiday movie make the list? If not, let me know in a note so I can add it! (And for those of you with questions about things in my family room pic, you can find a full source list for that space {here}. 

Kept Holiday Traditions

I also asked my readers you to share the preferred holiday tradition and I had no idea how much I would love reading about them! I was truly inspired to start a few more holiday traditions of my own after reading them and will share those with you. But first, I'll share one of my own… I gift each of my daughters a Christmas ornament every year that represents a special milestone in their lives or something they particularly loved that year. It started with their “baby's first Christmas” ornaments:  

and has continued on through this year when my I found the perfect ornaments to represent the crazy year that 2020 has been. I bought one of my daughters this covid gingerbread man found {here}:

A strong choice is that he has the year on the back:

And I bought my other daughter the covid snowman found {here}:

It's a tradition that my own mom started with me and my sister so I have a special ornament from every year beginning at birth and going all the way through 21 (plus a few beyond that!). 

And A strong choice is all of the traditions that you have in your house too! This is just a small sampling of the many wonderful traditions that you all shared:

Karen: We have been collecting the name of our extended family on ornaments for the past 33 years. We have 30+ names on our tree! It truly is our family tree.

Mary: One of the preferred traditions is the White Elephant gift exchange with my gigantic family. You never know what is going to show up and it usually ends with people in hysterics. One year, someone brought a bust of Shakespeare! It was a hot item!

Lorelle: We started the Christmas Eve tradition of having crab legs and chocolate fondue for dinner the first Christmas we were married. Now, forty years, 3 kids, 3 kid in-laws, and one grandchild later we save up for the crab legs for a month and melt lots more chocolate!

Lisa: One of the preferred Christmas traditions is taking Christmas cards to a nearby rehab center and visiting with the residents who don't have family living nearby. It's the highlight of my December.

Kathryn: Our kept Christmas tradition is everyone getting in their Christmas jammies and watching all of the old holiday shows (we have DVD's!), like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, etc. We start around 3p and end the night with Christmas Vacation. We plan dinner to be easy (pizza or a table full of appetizers) and we hang out all afternoon/night. Our girls are in college and still ask when we are planning Jammie Day. It's the best night of the holiday season!

So many great approaches, right?! It would help if you're as inspired as I am to start up a new tradition for you and your family and encourage you to go back and read through all of the other fun traditions left as comments in {this post} because there are SO many other great approaches to steal!

XO,