Let me start by saying that I have not seen the entirety of the Ice Age movies.  I have seen small parts at a time but this was my first full experience with these characters.  I watched it with my 4-year old daughter as well, so I can offer some of her perspective (if it seems more mature than mine, I am sure it is simply an error in reading skills).

It had been a long time since I had seen a “new” animated Christmas special.  My daughter and I regularly watched animated holiday videos this season like Charlie Brown, Rudolph, and Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (which I believe still holds up). Hit the jump for my review of Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas on DVD.

The animation was exceptionally done and the casting of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Queen Latifah was excellent for the characters they portrayed.  It was especially fun to see my daughter enjoy actors’/comedians’ performances from people that I have enjoyed for years in much different types of work.

As a father of a 4-year old and 1-year old, I have had the pleasure(?) of seeing many animated features in the past couple of years.  These have run the gamut from I-wish-I could-kill-myself-but-the-kids-in-the-theater-might-be-horribly-affected-by-it to truly enjoyable movies that have manage to include jokes for the parents that you don’t feel bad about hearing around your children.  This movie is definitely the latter.  Both my daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed it and have watched it several times since.

I mentioned that I have been watching quite a few animated holiday features lately.  I found it particularly interesting that this film introduces a concept that I had not seen in this type of movie before.  The parent characters talk about how Santa Claus isn’t real (my daddy-sense started tingling when I first heard them talking about this).  Thankfully, through the efforts of the children characters, all of the cast find out that Santa does indeed exist and all is well in the world (and in my house, for at least another year).

The edition I reviewed included three discs: Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital version.  I found this especially nice because we could watch it wherever we were, regardless of the technology at a relative’s house.  The Swingin’ Jingle Bells music video was also cute and made its way into my daughter’s Christmas-song-singing repertoire.   All in all, I recommend this package for anyone with children or just those adults who enjoy animated features and want to relive the experiences of childhood Christmas.