Hey y’all,
The holidays are over. The kids are back in school. The only thing left to look forward to this week is pizza night!
Every Friday night our family eats pizza and watches a movie. As I’ve written before:
In the beginning, there was pizza, but no movies. My youngest son would get too sad or scared or upset to sit through a feature film. “One day,” I thought, “One day we will be able to all sit down and eat pizza and watch a real movie together.”
That day came during the first Christmastime of the pandemic, when the youngest was approaching age six. We started with gentle, short viewings, like A Charlie Brown Christmas, Muppet Family Christmas, It’s A SpongeBob Christmas!, and even Elf. (My log notes that “Jules cried, but we made it through.”)
In 2021, when the boys were 8 and 6, Friday night pizza and a movie truly became a family ritual, something we looked forward to every week, something we did almost without fail.
We just completed our fifth year of pizza night! People ask me about it a lot, so I wanted to make a little list of tips we’ve learned along the way. (If you’d like Meghan’s dough recipe, it’s in this letter.)
1. Be patient. You have plenty of time. Don’t introduce movies too soon! Lots of young kids are sensitive and can’t even make it through a whole movie. Try starting with short, animated specials. (Christmas is a great time for this.) In the early days, it’s hard to go wrong with Bluey or The Muppets.
2. Spoilers are fine! If you have a young/sensitive viewer, just go ahead and let them read the plot summary of what you’re about to watch. Knowing the ending doesn’t ruin the story. It helps kids relax and enjoy.
3. Don’t expect your kids to like the stuff you loved as a kid. Go in without any expectations. Watch how they react, listen to what they say about it, and program the next movie accordingly. It’s great when your kids love the same movies you did, but it’s also enlightening to see old stuff through their eyes. (Ghostbusters, for example, did nothing for my kids. Ghostbusters!)