A Night At The Movies at The Madhouse !

This photo always makes me smile because it sums up everything I love about Christmas. Three generations of the Madhouse Family brought together around a table groaning with food, although the food is incidental really ! As you'll already know if you saw my recent post about The Dangerous Book For Grandads, we always love catching up with the Madhouse grandparents.

They're always willing to get roped into family fun like playing board games or watching Pierre practising his magic tricks. Madhouse Grandad is even a willing participant when Juliette gets out her nail varnish (luckily for him, she has peel-off ones !).

Going out for a family meal can be a nice way of spending an evening with the grandparents too, but it can work out quite expensive, so when Gracewell invited us to share a multigenerational Night At The Movies at The Madhouse, I thought it sounded like a lovely idea. Gracewell are a care home provider for the elderly and they believe that every single one of their residents – and their families – have individual needs for both their level of care and for the life they want to live. Movie nights are a regular event at their many care homes and Gracewell actively encourage residents’ families to attend, highlighting the activity as one of the many ways that the generations can stay in contact and socialise together. 

They sent us through a lovely pack containing some posh popcorn, some retro sweets and a family-friendly DVD (we chose Paddington) to enjoy an intergenerational movie night in. We haven't seen the Madhouse grandparents since Christmas but they will be visiting in a couple of weeks (the kids are crossing off the days on the calendar !) so we'll snuggle up on the settee together then to watch the DVD and munch our treats together. We did catch up on some films together over the festive period though and it's always great fun, for the grandparents seeing a grandchild's wonderment as they watch a classic well-known and well-loved movie such as ET for the first time, or for the younger members of the family, watching a golden oldie that the grandparents remember fondly and laughing at the old fashioned props and settings. This invariably leads on to lots of reminiscing and sharing of tales from their own lives (which invariably end up being even more entertaining than whatever we were watching !)

Disclosure : We received a "Night At The Movies" package of goodies.