I love Christmas and one of my favorite parts are Christmas movies.  My favorite movie is  It’s A Wonderful Life and it was a tradition in my family that we watched this movie every Christmas eve.  When I saw that Veggie Tales had created a child size version called VeggieTales: It’s a Meaningful Life, I was intrigued and excited to see this movie.

Synposis: It was the biggest football game of his life and Stewart (Larry the Cucumber) had a chance to win it all. Injured in one bad play, his hopes of playing in the Salad Bowl – and living a life of fame and fortune – are dashed forever. Years later, silly-but-sweet Stewart loves his family, friends and job at the toy train factory, but still wonders “what if” things had been different. When he meets a mysterious train conductor who can turn back time, Stewart gets a chance to have the life he always wanted. Will he finally find all he’s been looking for? And what does this mean for those he loves most? Find out in this story of wonder that’s a lesson in being content.

Bonus Features:

• Directors’ Audio Commentary
• Art Gallery
• Parents Guide presented by Family Life
• “Goodnight Junior” Silly Songs Sing-Along
• Visit a Train Museum with Larry
• Behind The Music of It’s a Meaningful Life—An Interview with Steven Curtis Chapman
• “Meant To Be” Music Video

My Opinion: As a parent, I actually love VeggieTales because these are cartoons that I can trust will be clean, instill good values, and be funny at the same time.   Each VeggieTales cartoon is only 40 minutes long which I also love.  I do not let my children watch a lot of cartoons so when they get to I don’t want it to be long.  Also the longer it is, the less engaged my child is.  I am not a huge fan of the VeggieTales Bible stories because I believe it dumbs down God’s word and confuses children; however, I love all of the other cartoons!

VeggieTales: It’s a Meaningful Life was one of the cutest cartoons that VeggieTales has ever come out with.  Being content is not an easy principle to teach but Larry the Cucumber as Stewart shows how easy it can be to have regrets and be discontent with life.  Life is full of disappointments and Stewart demonstrates that disappointment in an easy to understand way for children.

As Stewart goes back in time and he finds out how unfulfilling life would be if God had not allowed his injury, he begins to realize that the life he currently has is wonderful and meaningful.  I believe this cartoon isn’t just wonderful for children but a cartoon that the whole family can enjoy and learn from.

This is definitely a great addition to your Christmas traditions.  A content life is the best life we can have and VeggieTales: It’s a Meaningful Life fully demonstrates that.  You can purchase this movie for $14.97!

Win It!!

I have one VeggieTales It’s a Meaningful Life DVD for one lucky Empowering Mommy reader!

1.   Tell me your favorite VeggieTale character. (Do this one first!!)

Extra Entries:

2. Subscribe to this blog by email. Leave me a comment letting me know you did so. This will be verified.

3. Grab my button (found in the sidebar) and post it on your blog.  If you have an old button, make sure you grab the new one.  This must be up when the giveaway closes.

4. Leave a comment on another one of my posts – must be a nongiveaway post. Leave a comment with which post you commented on. If entering many different giveaways, it must be a different post for each giveaway.

5. Enter another Empowering Mommy giveaway. You may only use a giveaway one time for an extra giveaway. For example if you enter the iCute giveaway and leave it as your extra entry on this giveaway, you may not use the iCute giveaway as an extra entry on another giveaway. Let me know which giveaway you entered.

6. Follow me on Twitter and tweet the below statement. Please leave a comment with your twitter name letting me know you did so.  You can do this once a day.

Tweet this – 50 plus giveaways going on for the 2010 Empowering Mommy Holiday Gift Guide!  Over $1,000 in prizes!  http://bit.ly/coFLhF @rachaelcoe

7. Become a fan (or like) of Empowering Mommy and you may leave the below comment on your Facebook page. (Comment is not mandatory. I would just love if you did) Please leave a comment along with your facebook name letting me know you did so.

50 plus giveaways going on for the 2010 Empowering Mommy Holiday Gift Guide!  Over $1,000 in prizes!  http://bit.ly/coFLhF

8.  Like VeggieTales on Facebook.  I would love it if you would leave them a comment letting them know that Empowering Mommy sent you. (It is not mandatory to leave a comment – I would just love it if you did!)  Please leave a comment along with your facebook name letting me know you that you liked them.

8. Click the like Facebook button at the bottom of this post. You will find this right below the disclosure statement. Please leave a comment letting me know you did so.

This giveaway ends November 8, 2010 at 12:oopm PST and is open to the US only. Make sure that you leave your email address in each comment. Leave a separate comment for every entry that you make so that these will count for you! Have fun and I look forward to announcing the winners of this great giveaway!

Disclosure: This review is based on my own honest unbiased opinion of this product. You may or may not agree with my opinion. I was sent product free of charge to review. No one from the company was involved in the writing of this post. I was not paid to write this review.