Retro Night – getting the family together over a classic DVD

We’re lucky to live close to hubby’s family – his parents live a couple of miles away from us and go to the same church.  Whilst this means we see each other at least once a week, we don’t necessarily spend a lot of focused family time together.   A couple of weeks ago my father-in-law dislocated his knee which has left him unable to get out and about very easily and so we arranged to come over and have a film night together.

I was sent a kit for our movie night courtesy of the Sunrise care home in Banstead as part of their ‘Retro Night’ campaign.  This campaign aims to get the different generations to socialise together and movie nights are a regular occurrence at Sunrise care homes with residents’ families being encouraged to attend.  The kit for our movie night included a DVD, some retro sweets and popcorn and we bought some extra snacks for the evening too.

A DVD night is a great way to get the family together. After all, who doesn’t like curling up on the sofa with a big bag of popcorn (especially when it’s caramel and sea-salt flavoured!) to watch an old and well-loved classic film.

“The Wizard of Oz” was our film of choice – a classic family favourite and one which I thought the girls might enjoy.    Jessica found the scenes with the Wicked Witch of the West too scary and we had a couple of moments where she hid behind the sofa.  She did like Dorothy and Toto, the Munchkins and the “beautiful princess” (Glinda) though. Sophie didn’t seem bothered at all by the witch – to be honest the popcorn and sweets were much more interesting than the film as far as she was concerned!  The retro sweet bags we were sent had a fabulous assortment including Love Hearts, Parma Violets, Drumstick lollies, Fizzers and popping candy.  It was the first time Sophie had tried popping candy and she was quite fascinated by it!

For the adults, it was nice to head over the rainbow and into a wave of pure nostalgia – watching a film that we all loved but hadn’t seen for a very long time.  There were bits of it that we’d all forgotten about as well as all the well-remembered scenes.  We all had moments of singing along with the songs which the children weren’t so impressed by!

We had a lovely evening and all of us felt that it was something we’d like to do again at some point.  There are lots of other classic films that we’d like to introduce the girls to – The Sound of Music is currently top on my list! – and getting together for a film night as a family would be a great way of doing this.

We were sent the DVD, popcorn and sweets by Sunrise Senior Living and reimbursed for additional snacks purchased in return for a review of our film night.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.