Source Material

We first instituted Friday Night Movie Night in our home when Ian was deployed the second time.  I found it easier to keep the kids (and myself) distracted from his absence if we always had short term goals to look forward to.  Having Movie Night never be more than a week away helped more than you can imagine.

The challenge has always been finding movies for all of us to enjoy; nothing too scary or complicated for the youngest and nothing that will annoy or bore the adults to death.  So far we've done pretty well (and I will list suggestions for family movies at the end of this post if anyone's interested).

In the past year or so, we've decided to focus on what Ian and I term "Source Material."  Our kids are old enough that they've been exposed to a ton of media, and they constantly take in references to older movies and shows without realizing it.  We find ourselves regularly trying to explain certain jokes that go right over their heads during programs like Futurama, the Simpsons, and Phineas and Ferb.  (Thank goodness for YouTube.  I have paused episodes of Phineas and Ferb just to show the kids the opening themes to The Love Boat and Gilligan's Island--among other things--so they would appreciate the spoofs.)

But explaining things only goes so far.  Why not go right to the source and let them see for themselves?