New Love for an Old Movie
My husband and I have always been avid movie fans. We have often done things to try and instill this same joy for movies into our kids. We do a lot of at home movie nights with popcorn and maybe even some dollar store candy to give everyone the full experience. Our go to movies for these nights are often family favorites from my husband and I’s own childhood, and if it is a particular season, then you know we have themed movies for the occasion as well.
Damion doesn’t generally pay too much attention to the movies we watch. Sitting for an entire movie is still a struggle for him, and one that we don’t push at our home movie nights. He tends to have his go to favorite shows and breaking the barrier to become a new requested favorite does not happen often. So, you can imagine both my surprise and excitement when he recently found a new classic favorite during Christmas break: Home Alone.
After we watched it during a movie night over winter break, I was surprised that he started requesting to watch it again. Then he came up to me and started re-enacting some of his favorite scenes from the movie like when Kevin, the main character, puts after shave on and screams or when he runs and hides under the covers. I loved to see the pure joy in his face as he replayed these parts for me. Drew, who can often be Damion’s little shadow at times, decided he loved the movie too and started walking around saying, “Keep the change you filthy animal”. Everyone was having fun with the new movie favorite.
We did run into a few small snags with Damion wanting to rerun these scenes a little too often, especially since both involve some yelling. I was worried when it came to return to school that he may have a few issues in the classroom if he tried to attempt this loud re-enactment there. I shot a heads-up message to his aid before the first day back and thankfully there have been no issues yet. Hopefully we are in the clear. I did however see this little treasure written during his school writing assignment.
I know like so many other things I talk about, this may seem like a small thing to many people, but for us it is definitely noteworthy. Many times with our movie nights, Damion is so disconnected. That is if he chooses to participate and watch it with us at all. So, I definitely consider it a win that he found a new favorite and that it can be a shared favorite for the whole family. And one that we will now make sure to include every year during the Christmas season.