Make your holidays extra festive with A Christmas Story movie night for your kids with food, drinks, and decor ideas.
Ready to make this year’s Holiday Season a bit more exciting and festive with your family?
As our kids have gotten older, there are fewer holiday things they enjoy doing. The days of sitting on Santa’s lap and writing letters to Santa Claus are long gone.
This leaves us, parents, with the challenge of creating fun Christmas memories with our teens without them thinking that whatever we’ve planned is super lame or boring…this is a big task for good ole’ mom and dad!
So starting a few years ago as they were outgrowing the traditional “little kid” seasonal activities, we decided to start creating a weekly family movie night for the month of December leading up to Christmas.
It’s always been a family favorite to watch Christmas movies together, and we thought we’d make it just a bit more enticing for our teens to hang out with us if we paired the evening show with the best lure around (besides money)…FOOD!
For some of the movies we have served an entire elaborate menu with appetizer, main course, and desserts, and for other films, we pull together a few snacks and drinks and turn on the tv!
Regardless of what we’ve served, the kids seem to love it…it truly is a fun way to celebrate the Christmas season for the whole family (even mom and dad!)
And after all, isn’t that the ultimate Christmas present…spending time with your loved ones, creating memorable moments together?
We’ve really had a blast over the last few years watching some of the best Christmas movies around together.
We had a grinchy good time with “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” family movie night.
We’ve also made an evening out of watching my favorite Christmas movie, “Elf”, and serving some spectacular elf delicacies at the dinner table as we watched this funny holiday classic!
If you don’t want to be a “Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins”, you too can plan an “Elf” movie and dinner night for your family. I’ve got all sorts of ideas and inspiration for you on that blog post!
Each year I try to add at least one new movie to our rotation just so the kids don’t get bored, and nothing says “Merry Christmas” like watching “A Christmas Story” together…it’s in the top tier of holiday classics, and I’m not sure any Christmas movie can beat it in the “funny” category (well, except for maybe “Elf”…that might be a toss-up!)
So grab your leg lamp and Red Ryder bb gun, and let’s take a look at how to plan an epic movie night centered around Ralphie Parker and his family and their snowy day adventures in “A Christmas Story”.
There are tons of super creative ideas that truly the sky is the limit…I have even created a Pinterest Board dedicated just to “A Christmas Story” inspo if you need some help!
For me, since this was our first year adding the dinner component to watching “A Christmas Story” I wanted to keep it super simple and easy, “Little Piggie” peasy!
So let me show you two routes to the same destination…
Super Simple A Christmas Story Movie Night
The Main Meal: Chinese Food
It does not get much easier for the menu planning than to duplicate what Ralphie’s Dad and Mom planned for their Christmas Eve Dinner…Chinese Food!
We simply ordered our favorite take-out from a local Chinese restaurant and the dinner was complete!
The Dessert: “Oh Fudge” Brownies
One of the most famous scenes in the movie is when Ralphie drops an “F-bomb” in the movie but the show uses creative license to make it “Oh Fudge”. So for our dessert, we made chocolate brownies (cause we happen to have the ingredients to do that) instead of fudge, and then we used a white tube of icing to write the words “Oh Fudge”.
So if you are short on time, order some Asian take-out and buy (or make) some brownies and you’ve got a movie & dinner night ready to roll!
Now if you want to really knock your family’s socks off, you can take your movie night to a whole other level!
And here are some of the cutest ideas I’ve seen around!
The More Extensive Meal Plan for A Christmas Story Movie Night
Appetizer: “Triple Dog Dare You” Mini Hot Dogs
On the Reel Fancy Dinners Blog, they suggested serving three small Hillshire Farms li’ smokies on a fork as a nod to the “Triple Dog Dare You” quote in the movie which I thought was super creative!
Main Dish: “Meatloaf, Smeatloaf, Double Beatloaf…I hate meatloaf”
For anyone who has watched the movie on repeat, (like my family has) then you’ll know exactly what this is a reference to, and I loved this idea of making mini-meatloaves with mashed potatoes on top from Inspiring Magical Memories. Hopefully, you won’t need to convince any “little piggies” to bury their face in it!
Dessert: Ovaltine Cookies and Leg Lamp Cookies
If you want to put a little extra effort into your sweet treats for your family movie night, you’ve got quite a few amazing ideas for dessert to choose from!
If you are a baker, you could make these Ovaltine cookies…I’m not sure where you find Ovaltine, I mean do they actually sell that stuff still?
But if you want to try out the recipe for Ovaltine Sugar Cookies you can find it at Food Inspires. They actually do look really yummy!
If you are a super crafty baker, you could really impress your family (or your guests if you decide to turn this into a party) with cookies that look like the infamous leg lamp that Ralphie’s father so adores!
Delish.com knocks it out of the park with these handmade cookies…they are simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I mean, they should win “a major award” for these beauties!
They definitely look very intricate to make, so this is probably not a task for the novice cookie maker (AKA ME!). I think I’ll be sticking with my “Oh Fudge” brownies!
Bonus Points: Printables and Signs for The Christmas Story Movie Night
The pièce de résistance of any family movie night is having some cute signage to make it extra festive!
I saw all sorts of ideas about printing out a customized menu showing what you are going to serve for your movie viewing.
And I also stumbled upon these oh-so-adorable free printables for all sorts of things you could add to your movie night. Heck with this many good ideas, you might as well make it a party and invite friends and neighbors!
Printable Crush kills it with these free printable add ons to make your evening that much more memorable! Go check out all the cool stuff they have!
So there you have it…the super simple path or the more detailed menu options to help you make it a spectacular family evening together no matter which path you choose!
So what do you think?
What movie should we create a special menu for next?
Home Alone?
It’s a Wonderful Life?
Let me know in the comments what your favorite Christmas movies are!
Until next time, cheers to not shooting your eye out, and cheers to you!
XOXO,
Magan
PS Want to plan another fun movie night? Check out my National Lampoon’s Themed Dinner & Movie Night!
