Tuesday, December 23, 2014

christmas countdown #4


Number 4:  Totoro

Christmas-Worthy Quality:  Miracles

Why:  This fuzzy, lovable fur ball from Hayoa Miyazaki's animated masterpiece, "My Neighbor, Totoro" is a highly iconic figure in both Japan and America.  The film revolves around two sisters who move into a "haunted" house with their father, only to find that there actually IS something magical happening in their new neighborhood--and that it's name is Totoro, a spirit of the forest.  The pair go one an incredible adventure and experience some wonderful, impossible things.  It's a really sweet story, but it's also about what you see and what you don't see, especially miracles--both the amazing kind and the everyday kind.  The eternal Christmas dilemma--whether to believe or not believe that something wonderful is happening SOMEWHERE on December 25th--really hits home for me.  I mean, come on.  Why NOT believe?  There are a million reasons, I guess, but personally... I'd rather be the person who says, "Yes.  I believe, because I have to.  The world is a brighter place when people choose to look toward something good, to wait on something good, even if they don't know exactly what it is yet".  That's a lot of what Christmas is about already, isn't it?

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