Getting Into The Christmas Spirit With A Festive Family Movie...

Warner Brothers have asked me if I want to write about some of their Christmas Family Movies, and I'm more than happy to oblige. Christmas is truly the most wonderful time of year for films. Everyone has some actual time off to relax, the weather outside is frightful and the whole family are home for Christmas. Get the popcorn and some hot chocolate, grab a blanket and snuggle up to spend some special time together getting into the festive spirit...

Animation is a festive winner and The Polar Express is a gorgeous Christmas movie which has a lovely tale of honesty and friendship behind it. Adults watch this one for the nostalgia and the quite tricky storyline, children at first watch it as a magical train to Santa, before they get a bit older and begin to understand the deeper meanings. The animation style does fall deep into uncanny valley, so it's not to everyone's taste.

Christmas movies let directors and producers play around with films, they can be a bit more magical and unusual, and Jack Frost is a great example with it's unusual looking main character, as poor Jack turns from human to Snowman. This is a film about a boy losing his Father, and his Father having a second chance to put things right. It's a classic Christmas tale, with a more poignant twist.

My children are all used to watching movies - my youngest was 18 months when he sat through his first full length film at the cinema, so he was more than ready at 3 when The LEGO Movie came out. It's a film we've watched as a family a lot, and although it doesn't have a Christmas theme, it's all about toys, and the relationship between a father and his son, and it has a real feel-good factor, as well as lots of those jokes that adults snigger at and children don't notice...good on many levels.

Get Santa is a film we haven't seen, and features some great UK actors including Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall and Warwick Davis. I'm really looking forward to spending an afternoon watching this with my children in the run up to Christmas. Santa needs help (another common theme to Christmas family movies), and a young lad called Tom, and his Dad come to the rescue...

The Wizard Of Oz doesn't mention anything festive as far as I can remember, but it is the perfect pantomime tale with a warning and a message - there really is no place like home. The story is so familiar, long-standing and traditional that it has been synonymous with Christmas since before I was born. A family movie can stand a little peril, because we have to learn how to defeat the monsters, and where better than on the sofa next to one of your parents...

For a good hearty laugh, but still a movie with a message, one of my all-time favourite Christmas family films is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I'm a complete sucker for the deadpan style and Beverly D'Angelo's stoic resilience despite the constant bumbling of Chevy Chase as her husband Clark Griswald. Every year when we buy our Christmas tree and try to get 'as big as will fit', I can't help but think of the Griswald's tree bent over at the top to fit in...

Grab the mistletoe and get ready to find the perfect gift for that special someone this Christmas. Warner Bros. has the ultimate selection, whether you’re looking for him, for her, or for festive favourites to get the whole family in the Christmas spirit. Warner Bros. has a fantastic selection of festive favourites to get the whole family in the Christmas spirit, including Polar Express, Get Santa, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Jack Frost. The LEGO Movie, Happy Feet, The Wizard Of Oz and Fred Claus....

You can buy all of these Family Movies at HMV (those I've featured are all £5.99 each).

If you are reading before midnight on 18th December, I have a Twitter Giveaway running where you can win 4 of these fabulous movies for yourself by Following me/Retweeting a tweet. You can find the Twitter Family Christmas Movie Bundle Giveaway here