How Drew Barrymore Wants to Spend Mother's Day: Watching Tom and Jerry with Her Girls

"I would like to start the day by ourselves, just me and the girls, vintage Tom and Jerry," she tells PEOPLE

Drew Barrymore is planning on celebrating the little things — with her little ones! — this year for Mother’s Day.

“We don’t have any big plans or anything,” the actress told PEOPLE while hosting the Shutterfly Mother’s Day Event in Hollywood on Sunday. “I would like to start the day by ourselves, just me and the girls, vintage Tom and Jerry.”

Yes, a cat and mouse cartoon created in 1940 has become a staple in the Barrymore household, and has become something that Barrymore and daughters Frankie, 2, and Olive, 3, can enjoy together.

“They live for it!” the 41-year-old mother says, laughing. “There is a real oddity to the humor, it’s kind of deep and dark and weird.”

Lester Cohen/Getty Images for Shutterfly

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Introducing her daughters to the iconic cartoon wasn’t by accident: Barrymore admits she “hit a wall of kid shows” and was looking for a new source of kid-friendly entertainment.

“[Tom and Jerry] was something that I could tolerate watching,” she says. “I love Sesame Street because [you go through] the Sesame Street phase, and then you go through the Dora the Explorer phase, and then you are in that mid-range. I was like, ‘Girls, I need to show you this because there is such good comedy here!’ ”

Fortunately for Barrymore, the iconic cat and mouse quickly won over two more fans.

“I was like, ‘I just need to go back, I just need some Tom and Jerry.’ And it turned out that they loved it!” she says. “The physical comedy is amazing, and a lot of great animated films have such adult themes, but done in a way that children are loving it.”

— Reagan Alexander