Retaining the Wonder

Generated with AI from my prompt

To be a kid at heart, as I most definitely am, isn’t to look at everything with a kind of naive trust. It isn’t to bury yourself in childhood and never emerge. It isn’t to find the goodness in everything. It is the ability to retain the capacity for wonder.

When I watch a programme or a film that I remember from my childhood I am that child again. For however long I am watching I am immersing myself in the thoughts and feelings of many years ago. When I finally met Julie Dawn Cole earlier this year, I was that starry eyed boy who had a picture of her on my bedroom wall. I went back around 50 years to when I first saw her and when I had my picture taken with her I was as nervous as if my ten or eleven year old self was the one getting the opportunity to stand next to my childhood crush. I think that’s a large part of what being a kid at heart is all about.

However, there is another element that makes up that personality type. When I watched something with my children as they were growing up I had the ability to put myself in their shoes by reacting to their programmes or films in a very similar way to them. I would really enjoy programmes that I would like to have seen as a boy not as an adult. I would react to the characters and stories in the same way as I reacted to my favourite characters and stories in my childhood.

Christmas is the time that brings out my inner child like no other. For the month of December, I will play the music, the films and the series that fill me with that wonder, and I am always finding films that appeal to my inner child. For example, A Boy called Christmas really enchanted me last year and I immediately bought the Dvd for this year. My children loved The Snowman and Miracle on 34th Street as do I. I have a whole collection of Christmas Carol adaptations but the one I love most is the Richard Williams cartoon version that I first saw as a 7 year old. I will always believe that Christmas is a magical time of year, and although the way that I experience that magic has changed, my feelings haven’t. I still wake up early on Christmas Day with real excitement in my heart and I know that will never change.

Retain the Wonder!