Set on a Depression era Christmas Eve in 1933, this heart-tugging story centers around the Walton family. They’re a rural American family preparing to celebrate Christmas together. Though times are tough, love and sharing are abundant in this family. An inspiring tale of love, hope and spirit, this deeply moving story goes far beyond the boundaries of time and place to reach out and touch everyone, everywhere.
A true television classic, The Homecoming was the second movie (after 1963’s [Spencer’s Mountain](http://amzn.to/1OHPW9r)) based on Earl Hamner’s autobiographical writings about love, pride, faith, and survival in rural America during the Great Depression. The Homecoming introduced the Walton family, a 1930s mountain clan living a hardscrabble existence that forces patriarch John Walton (Andrew Duggan) to seek work, far from home, in the city. When John fails to return home, as promised, on Christmas Eve, his iron-willed wife Olivia (Patricia Neal) keeps a lid on their children’s worry. Oldest son John-Boy (Richard Thomas), who privately dreams of becoming a writer but worries about disappointing his parents, is dispatched to find his dad. Graceful yet harder-edged than the subsequent TV series The Waltons (which recast several characters and ran for nine years), The Homecoming reveals, albeit understatedly, much about the pain of poverty even as the family draws strength and closeness through endurance. –Tom Keogh
Starring Patricia Neal, Richard Thomas, Edgar Bergen, Ellen Corby, Cleavon Little.
Note: Willow and Thatch loves this “heartwarming holiday movie that inspired The Waltons.” Most of the familiar cast of the TV series is featured in the movie, with the notable exceptions of the parents and grandfather. Patricia Neal and Andrew Duggan play Olivia and John Walton. In the series, their characters would be portrayed by Michael Learned and Ralph Waite. Grandpa Zeb Walton, played here by Edgar Bergen, was later played by Will Geer in the series.
There were also Christmas episodes that were part of the series [The Waltons](http://amzn.to/1NdC8iw): The first Christmas episode of the TV series, entitled “The Best Christmas” was part of the fifth season (1976), The Waltons: The Children’s Carol (1977) was in season six, “Day of Infamy” was the holiday special in season seven (1978) and the season eight (1979) Christmas episode of The Waltons was “The Spirit.”