I glanced at the post most likely on Facebook or Pinterest and kept scrolling. Our eighteen year old, loyal in keeping and creating traditions, showed me the same post and announced he was going to do it.

What’s our new tradition?

The wrapped Christmas movies.

We’ve had a lot of fun with this and added our own spin to it. I thought I’d share our process in case you want to prepare for next year.

First, our son created a Christmas movie master list. We don’t own everything on DVD, so he researched what was available on Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.

Here’s his list:

1. ELF[DVD]
2. Miracle on 34th Street [DVD/Netflix]
3. Christmas with the Kranks [Netflix]
4. Ernest Saves Christmas [Netflix]
5. Polar Express [DVD]
6. Saving Santa [Netflix]
7. White Christmas [Netflix]
8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Animated or not?)
9. Charlie Brown Christmas [DVD]
10. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town [DVD]
11. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer [DVD]
12. Year Without A Santa Claus (DVD)
13. Little Drummer Boy (DVD)
14. The Nativity Story (YouTube)
15.  A Christmas Story [DVD]
16. A Madea Christmas [YouTube)
17. Prep and Landing [DVD]
18. Mickey’s Christmas Carol [DVD]
19. Prep and Landing 2 [DVD]
20. Nightmare Before Christmas [YouTube]
21. Arthur Christmas [Sling]
22. How I Met Your Mother – How Lily Stole Christmas (S. 2 Ep. 11 – Netflix)
    1. Friends – The One With The Routine (S. 6 Ep. 10 – Netflix)
23. Parks and Recreation – Citizen Knope (S. 4 Ep. 10 – Netflix)
    1. Seinfeld – The Strike (S. 9 Ep. 10 – Hulu)
24. Friends – The One With The Holiday Armadillo (S. 7Ep. 10 – Netflix)
    1. The Office – Christmas Party (S. 2 Ep. 10 – Netflix)
25. Arthur’s Perfect Christmas (Dailymotion)

Drake and Josh Christmas?

Our basket of wrapped Christmas movies, the bag with numbers, and the stack of movies we’ve already unwrapped.

Once he found his movies, he found my wrapping paper and all the DVD cases we had in the house. If there was a movie we didn’t own, he wrote the title out on a scrap piece of paper and taped it to a random DVD cover. Then, he wrapped every DVD.

Our thirteen year old created a twist. She cut slips of paper and numbered them 1-25, and then repeated the process. One stack of those numbers she put in a plastic bag. The second set of numbers she placed on each DVD. Once we started our new tradition on December 1, she’d reach in the bag and pick out a number. If she picked #6, she’d look through the basket of wrapped DVD’s until the found the wrapped DVD marked #6.

Fun, right?

For our daughter, she loved the unwrapping part. I think we’ve all enjoyed sitting down together and seeing what new movies/shows we could experience. With the classic movies, we’d look up behind-the-scenes tidbits. There were some shows I haven’t seen since I was a little girl. It was fun to talk about these things.

I also had fun on Facebook. I’d post clues on what movie we watched and entertained guesses.

I’m so glad we did this. We agreed not to get legalistic and force a movie if we were busy, and enough were shows that weren’t long that on a day we weren’t busy, we played catch up.

If you’re looking for a new Christmas season tradition, consider the wrapped Christmas movies. Are there any not on our list that you would add?