The Family Movie Marathon
Something to consider doing with your family and friends.
For the first time last year, my family decided to try a movie marathon. Working for RYM in the summers means that they’re filled to the brim with activity. Hiking in the mountains, Spikeball on the beach, swimming in the ocean, late nights, early mornings - long, full, fun days.
In light of this, I had the idea about our family picking a day to watch movies all day long. We had never done this before and it ended up being a success, so we might do it again. My wife is a very outdoorsy type of person, so this really was a test for her and she enjoyed it as well.
There’s not much that’s needed to pull this off, but there are two ideas I’d like to share that proved helpful. The second involved some convincing, but it really added to the joy of the marathon.
Tip #1
The first involves some practical advice about picking movies. Every family is different, but our family involves seven people. If each of us picked a movie and each of those movies was about 2 hours, that comes to 14 hours (I had to use a calculator). That would mean that we might need to start our movie marathon at 8:00 a.m.
Believe it or not, but we are a family that’s slightly strict on screens. We rarely ever allow screens before lunch. During the school year, Mondays and Tuesdays are screen-free. There are some other rules we have in place, but screens are limited in our home.
Instead of us watching 7 different movies and starting around 8:00 a.m., a few of us combined our choices. If I remember correctly, my wife and I picked one movie and two of the other children combined their movies, which came to five movies (math!).
Part of the fun of the marathon is that we all get to pick a movie, but, more often than not, you can find some movies to agree on. Either way, it’s fun to plan a day where you’ll watch more than one movie together.
Many family movie nights are a challenge due to kids fighting over a movie, but hosting a marathon or double-feature might minimize or remove the fight because everyone gets to pick.
Tip #2
The second tip is one that involved a bit of whining and complaining, but it actually made us feel better and enjoy the marathon.
Since we were going to sit inside all day and watch five movies, we went for a walk before we started the marathon and then in between each movie. In our neighborhood, there’s a loop that’s just shy of one mile. We walked that loop before we started and then we’d walk the loop after we finished each movie. By the end of the day, we had walked approximately five to six miles.
I can’t help but think that we’d all have felt pretty terrible by the end of the day if we had just been sitting and looking at a screen. It felt good to know that we got outside and moved our bodies a bit.
Plus, it’s simply good for our souls to be out in creation. While I’m a huge proponent of movies being a form of general revelation, I’m also convinced that our souls are created by God to be out in nature. We’re to use the bodies he’s created and experience the outside world, so this became a huge factor for our marathon.
Bonus Tip
Of course we had fun snacks and rotated who we sat with, but the above two tips are helpful if you’re considering this for your family. A bonus tip I’ll throw in is to look at the weather. The heat and humidity of living in Mississippi make the movie marathon an ideal (air conditioned) summer event. Maybe do this on a day when the heat is unbearable or a rainy summer day.
Let me hear from you. Have you ever done this before? What are some other ideas or tips you’d like to share?
Great advice!