Christmas Movie Night Ideas + Grinch Popcorn Recipe!
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Have a fun Christmas movie night with these ideas! Plus, a Grinch popcorn recipe perfect for movie viewing!
What’s your favorite activity to do around the holidays? For me, I love watching Christmas movies!
And having snacks with them. Always with the snacks!
I usually go for some straight up popcorn, or maybe some Christmas goodies. But this year I started thinking about how fun would it be to have a Christmas movie night where the snacks matched the movies?
This got me thinking about what snacks would be great for which movies, and I decided to put a list together. Which I’m now sharing with you!
Also, since I love popcorn for a movie snack, I came up with a fun popcorn recipe- Grinch Popcorn!
Grinch popcorn gets it’s name from the fact that it’s well, green! It’s a delicious white chocolate covered popcorn, with various additions…sprinkles, mint M&M’s, and crushed peppermint candy canes.
It’s a delicious, sweet, slightly minty treat! And with the Christmas colors, it’s perfect for Christmas movie viewing…especially if you are watching the Grinch!
Keep on reading to see how to make it, plus the other movie/snack pairings that would be fun ideas below!
Christmas Movie Night Ideas + Grinch Popcorn Recipe
What Ingredients Do You Need?
For the Grinch popcorn recipe, you will need:
- ½ cup of popcorn kernels, popped (plain)
- 12 oz white chocolate chips
- 6-9 drops of green food coloring
For the toppings:
- ¼ cup sprinkles (if you can find heart ones those would be awesome)
- ¾ cup M&M’s (I used the mint kind)
- ¼ cup crushed candy canes or peppermints
I like to pop my popcorn on the stove, but you can use whatever method you please! For toppings, I like these ones because I like the minty flavor…but you can definitely switch it up with whatever you like, really.
You could do some fun sour/sweet candies perhaps, or regular M+Ms, or chopped peanut butter cups…you could even go with something like chopped nuts or pretzels! It’s really up to you.
I do like the colors of this combo though, as it feels Christmassy and Grinch-y to me, but it would be fun to experiment with some other ideas! Also, for the sprinkles, it would be really cool to find heart shaped sprinkles (I couldn’t), since that would fit even better into the Grinch theme!
What Equipment Do You Need?
- Popcorn popper (of whatever sort you desire to pop your popcorn)
- Large bowl
- Small bowl for melting the white chocolate
- Spoon
- Spatula
- Parchment paper
- Sheet pan
- Measuring cups
- Fridge
You definitely need a large bowl for this one, or to do it in batches if you don’t. It’s a little tough to stir the white chocolate into the popcorn if your bowl is too small!
Other than that, everything is pretty straight forward!
Other Christmas Movie Night Snack Pairing Ideas:
Let’s talk about some other ideas for movie/snack pairings to have the next Christmas movie night!
Here are some great ones:
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: Eggnog! You can easily buy some from the store if you don’t want to make it- and they have all kinds of versions now. You can even make an adult alcoholic beverage from it if you want!
- Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Cheese pizza, mac and cheese, ice cream sundae…so many ways you can do these ones! Make your own or buy, customize to tastes- this would be a really fun (and tasty!) one.
- Elf: Grab your spaghetti (or favorite pasta) and enjoy (maybe without the maple syrup, but to each their own) with Elf! Or you can go with cookies if you want more sweet.
- Any of The Grinch movies: You are perfectly welcome to have roast beast if you want, but if not, the Grinch inspired popcorn in this post is a great substitute!
- A Christmas Story: You don’t have to go full duck for this one Haha! But grab some of your favorite Chinese food to enjoy with this movie.
- The Santa Clause (also works for the Polar Express): The best hot chocolate of course! If you want to go a little less traditional, I shared a delicious White Chocolate Peppermint Hot Chocolate earlier this week.
- Also The Santa Clause: Cookies! Or Denny’s inspired diner food.
- It’s a Wonderful Life: Mulled wine, ice cream with coconut (or whatever toppings you like!), or a bread appetizer (maybe a pull apart bread, or bread rounds with dip?). Mulled wine would be especially nice on a cold night, just like in the movie!
- Bad Santa: How about some chocolates and a sandwich?
- Christmas with the Kranks: A caramel cream pie, or some caramel cream candies would go nicely with this funny movie! And if you want to do dinner too, don’t forget your hickory honey ham!
- Jingle All the Way: your BEST and favorite Christmas cookies!
- White Christmas: a white hot chocolate or some mini sandwiches with milk would hit the spot for this film!
Which Christmas movie night pairing sounds the best to you?
It’s a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie…but if I’m going with a snack pairing movie, I think I’d go for Home Alone first. Can’t go wrong with pizza, mac and cheese, and ice cream!
xoxo
The Grinch Popcorn Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup of popcorn kernels popped (plain)
- 12 oz. white chocolate chips
- 6-9 drops of green food coloring
Toppings (optional or mix it up with your favorites!):
- ¼ cup sprinkles if you can find heart ones those would be awesome
- ¾ cup M&M’s I used the mint kind
- ¼ cup Crushed candy canes or peppermints
Instructions
- Once your popcorn is popped, pour it into a large bowl. Try to pick out any un-popped kernels that you see. If you don’t have a bowl big enough, you may have to do this in batches!
- Melt the white chocolate chips, 30 seconds at a time in the microwave, stirring after each interval and being careful not to burn. Once the white chocolate chips have melted, stir in the green food coloring.
- Pour the white chocolate over the popcorn in the bowl. Stir well to coat the popcorn, as evenly as possible. Pour the popcorn out onto a parchment lined baking sheet and sprinkle with the toppings. Mix the toppings into the popcorn a little bit to make them stick and then spread it all into an even layer.
- Place the popcorn into the fridge until the white chocolate has solidified, about an hour or so. Then take it out and break into whatever size chunks you want. Enjoy!
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PIN Christmas Movie Night + Grinch Popcorn Recipe for Later:
Oh absolutely love this recipe! The Grinch is one of my absolute favourite eChristmas movies so this is a must try! Who doesn’t love having popcorn during movie night? Thanks for sharing x
It’s a fabulous movie!
I have to admit, popcorn is not my snack of choice, but having seen this on Instagram I was like ‘need to make it now’ so I just need to try it as soon as humanly possible! It looks adorable Sarah x
Thank you! We’re big popcorn fans around here, but I think even non-popcorn lovers would like this one!
Addicting, the batch you made was gone in 2 days.
It definitely was! Couldn’t stop eating it..
This is such a wonderful recipe! Love it! Perfect for the holidays and seems easy to make, definitely will try to make it, maybe not this year as I have no food colouring at home or candy canes, so next year (hopefully with stores all open so I can just hop to stores)!
Thank you! You can definitely customize it too if you aren’t able to find some ingredients!
Ooh, this is such a fun idea! It would be especially fun for kids 🙂 x
Definitely! We loved making it!
I never thought about creating colourful popcorn, that’s such a good idea! A lovely way to spice up a movie night.
It’s a super fun recipe to make and can easily be customized too!