Going to the movies

My parents definitely grew up in the era in which Christians did not drink, smoke, dance, play cards, or go to the movies. Period. (I almost failed Prob & Stat in high school because every problem seemed to revolve around a deck of playing cards, and I had to get out the encyclopedia to understand!)

I always say the first time I went to a movie theater was to see "Chariots of Fire." But maybe it was "Joni."  At any rate, we had to call them "films," not "movies." 

But it must have been around the same time (December 1980) that we four girls spent a week with our aunt and uncle, and it's possible our uncle took us to the movie theater to see a Brer Rabbit movie. (Not sure about the accuracy of my memory there!)

And sometimes in the summer when we were growing up, a neighbor lady across the highway would take us to the summer movies downtown with her children. Not sure how old I was.

And of course, we frequently went to "The Christian Cinema" downtown.  I only remember "Shiokari Pass," but there were dozens of Christian films that rotated through the schedule (and I think we saw all of them).  When it moved to its second location, its repertoire widened to "family films," and I remember seeing "Snowy River" there.

Suffice it to say that we were not going to the movies to see blockbusters. 

And neither are our children. :) ... Until now! (Well, not blockbusters ... but they can now say they have been to a movie theater.)

We planned to see "The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever," and I talked it up. But they had no idea what to expect.  There were tears. "It will be too loud, and you forgot my headphones." "I won't be able to hear and it won't have closed-captioning." We persevered!  They decided that the seats would be in rows, "like the planetarium."

I'm not sure what they thought during the movie, but when the credits were rolling, BK looked over at me and asked, "We're going to do this every week, right?" ;)