Thinking About Showing Your Kids The Christmas Chronicles? Here's What Parents Should Know

The story follows a sister and brother — Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy (Judah Lewis) — who are trying to navigate the holidays the best they can after their dad died. Although Kate is eager to record everything that happens on Christmas with her old-school video camera, Teddy would rather spend time stealing cars with his friends. And unfortunately, Kate caught the crime on tape, resulting in them going at it WWE-style.

Like many of its predecessors, The Christmas Chronicles plays with the concept of whether or not Santa exists. As you can probably guess, most of the negativity comes from Teddy in the beginning of the movie. But fortunately for parents, all the doubts are promptly shut down as soon as Teddy meets him in person. Later on, there are few instances when adults admit to not believing, but they're also proven wrong quickly.

Picture Santa as a portly man in a red suit? Think again. Once Kate and Teddy come face to face with Santa, they note how different he looks than what they envisioned. He replies with, "Why? Because I'm not a big fat slob? Who can eat millions of cookies in one night and not get fat? Well, I can!" And frankly, it was a little cringey. The topic of Santa's weight comes up more as the movie goes on, and while his responses are much more toned down, his original answer might take viewers aback at first.

A major reason why we loved this movie? It's not over the top in terms of cheesiness. If we had to compare how inappropriate it is in the language and violence departments, Home Alone is a good benchmark.

Parents should prepare for their kids to hear words like "hell," "moron," and "damn" several times. While there's certainly no full on F-bomb, prepare for a few "freakin's" from Teddy.

The same train of thought can be applied to the violence aspect. There are a few instances sprinkled throughout that could be scary to the 10-and-under crowd, like when Kate and Teddy get in a fight, a bartender chases Santa out of a restaurant with a baseball bat, and a group of Santa's elves push someone through a window. Of course, there's no blood or gore — just something to keep in mind.

Do cute little Santa's helpers à la Elf pop into your head when you picture these creatures? Not this time! The ones in The Christmas Chronicles definitely have an edge. First, they're extremely territorial and overprotective over Santa — who can blame 'em? — and secondly, they'll go to any length to keep him and his friends safe.

One of the most action-packed parts of the movie is when hundreds of elves leave their home (conveniently in Santa's toy bag) to take on a few neighborhood bad guys who are giving Kate and Teddy a hard time. While justice prevails, they definitely didn't hold back when fighting the group of troublemakers.

Although parents with young kids might want to steer clear of this title for the time being, it's a great option for parents with older children. It has a sweet, emotional ending without 90 minutes of pure sappiness in the middle. Kurt Russell shines as a modern, hilarious Santa Claus, and we love all the lessons Kate and Teddy learn along the way, including the importance of believing.