Tag: thanksgiving

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Give Thanks This Year With These 3 Family Films!

 

It was the autumn of 1621 when 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians held the first Thanksgiving to celebrate a successful harvest. 200 years later, it became a national holiday that is still celebrated today. Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful. It is a day when Americans gather together with family to enjoy delicious traditional foods like turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pumpkin pie! It is a day to enjoy some football and classical movies. Here is a list of films to enjoy this Thanksgiving.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)

We all remember watching this instant classic as kids. In this holiday special, Charlie Brown attempts to have a Thanksgiving dinner after Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends to his house. Snoopy, Linus, Woodstock, and the whole gang get together for a dinner filled with large ice cream sundaes and whipped cream. Since its premiere in 1973, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving has continued to air every November as a Thanksgiving special. This Emmy award winning animation is based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. Although, it might be for kids, who can resist a good classic with Charlie Brown and Snoopy?

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (1987)

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles is a hilarious and heartwarming classic about two men trying to make it home for Thanksgiving. In this comedy, Neal Page (Steve Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) get trapped in Kansas after all the flights are canceled due to a massive snowstorm. All Neal truly wants is to get home in Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his wife and kids. Unfortunately, he gets stuck traveling with Del Griffith who he finds is extremely annoying. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film “has become a holiday traveler’s staple” and is a must watch during this holiday season.

The Nightingale (2015)

The Nightingale, directed by Philippe Muyl, is a beautiful family film that follows the journey of an elderly man and his spoiled granddaughter. The pair travel to rural, southwestern China with a caged bird in order to keep a promise made to a loved one. Through this bonding journey, Ren Xing, the granddaughter, goes through a humbling transformation as she begins to understand the simple life that her grandfather experienced. This heartening film examines family values, traditions, and generational differences. This was China’s official selection for the 87th Academy Awards. It is the perfect movie to watch with family on Thanksgiving. It will surely make you laugh, cry, and be thankful for family.

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Top Thanksgiving Films to Watch with Family

 

Thanksgiving is a special time to be thankful for loving families, caring friends, and all the gifts of life we’re lucky to have. It is a day when family and friends gather to break bread and celebrate the gift of the harvest and the miracle of life. A better way to commemorate the great American holiday is to add in a lineup of Thanksgiving films. Although they’re not all centered around the traditional dining table, these films do have one thing in common which are reminders that we can be thankful for lots of things. Either Thanksgiving or any time of the year; these heartwarming classics will remind you to be thankful after enjoying a delicious turkey and stuffing.

An all-time classic, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) is an excellent holiday special for family and friends to enjoy the story of Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang truly learning the meaning of Thanksgiving.

The 1987 holiday classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles tells the story of Neal (played by Steve Martin), a Chicago advertising man and Del (played by John Candy), a traveling salesman from Chicago who sells shower curtain rings. Both of these men are in Manhattan two days before Thanksgiving, and both want to get home for the holidays. They butt heads along the way but they were fated to travel together.plane-train-auto

Grab a box of tissues because this film starring Sandra Bullock will put you in tears. The Blind Side (2009) is a must see Thanksgiving film. It is the story of Michael Oher, a gifted boy from the poorest area of Memphis. He is found and adopted by the Tuohy’s, a wealthy family. The first weekend that Michael spends with the Tuohy’s is Thanksgiving weekend. The audience gets the feeling that eating Thanksgiving around a family table is something he has longed for his entire life

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These Thanksgiving films are an important reminder of what the holiday is all about: feeding our souls. Certainly, the food is great and there’s usually a lot of it, but we join around a table to give thanks for the lives we have and family and friends with whom we share those lives. No matter who makes the Thanksgiving dinner, we hope that you have a heartwarming, soul-satisfying day with your friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

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Happy Thanksgiving, watch Welcome to Eden!

 

Thanksgiving is a time for food and family, but for some of us we would rather be on our digital devices. I have found a perfect way to combine films with Thanksgiving. Most films about Thanksgiving are about the family disaster that happens during the meal. These movies are funny, but you’ve seen them hundreds of  times. What you really need is a film like Welcome to Eden. It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving exactly, it’s a documentary which will make you thankful for every mouthful of food you have eaten. That extra helping mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie will even more appreciated, after watching Welcome to Eden. This documentary focuses on a local urban farm in LA that is being forced to shut down. Many activists, including Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, and Daryl Hannah, were there to lend their support.

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing what you have with those less fortunate. There are 2.6 million children who will die as a direct result of hunger. The native Americans helped the colonists survive the long winter with food. The world has enough food to feed everyone, but it's unprofitable. Try something new this year and get everyone to watch Welcome to Eden, they will be better people for the watching.