The Magic of Mary Poppins Returns on Christmas Day
We’re on the brink of an adventure children – don’t spoil it with questions!
Mary Poppins
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| Grandpa Ted and Grandma Rosemary |
As a child I was an old soul. And when I say old, I mean
OLD. When I was three, I believed there was no Santa Claus because the ones at
the grocery stores and mall all looked different. By the time I was in fifth
and sixth grade I no longer wanted to sit with the kids at family gatherings, because
they were childish to me. So, I would always hang out with the adults. I always
thought having an old soul was a good thing. It meant you were mature and wiser
than everyone else your age. That the adults respected you. But as I’ve grown
older, I have started to wonder – what does the term “old” soul really mean? In
the past several years I have realized an age is just a number. It doesn’t
dictate how you act or what you are capable of doing. It does not dictate that you
are required lose your sense of wonder, your sense of awe. I remember as a 20-year-old
sitting at my grandma’s table being surprised, when thunder roared so loud it
shook the house, that my grandma’s sparkly blue eyes lit up as her small mouth
formed into an “O” as she murmured, “Wow.” It is a memory I always thought was
cute and funny, but now as I sit at the table on Christmas day, living out the
last few days of my 37th year, I realize it was her showing me that you
are never too old to be moved with amazement from a thunderstorm. Or anything
for that matter.
Some of the people who inspire me the most are those who live in a 60 something year old body but have the spirit of a child.
One thing I remember my grandparents loving was old
musicals. They never grew tired of seeing the same movie over and over again. As
a child one of my fond memories was of watching Mary Poppins at their house. I
have always thought it was a more kid friendly musical because of the cartoon
scene and the children in the cast. Which is why, I showed it to my daughter
when she was 2 and 3 years old. So, when I heard Mary Poppins Returns was coming out, I knew it would be an
appropriate movie to take my son, who’s 3 and daughter, now 7, to see on Christmas
Day. As the movie started, I skeptically asked myself, this movie is definitely
not going to do any justice to the original Mary Poppins, will it? (Mind you it
is a sequel and not a remake.) As the movie progressed, I realized one piece of
advice that Mary gave at the beginning of the movie, “We’re on the brink of an
adventure children – don’t spoil it with questions!” was something I should
take to heart. So, I sat, with both children cuddled up next to me, for two and
a half hours, allowing myself to be transported to a deep sea ocean dive at the
bottom of a bathtub, a trip in a wagon driven by a cartoon dog (why not?) along
the road on a antique bowl, and floating, being held up by a single balloon,
above the city. There was much laughter and some tears as I watched the adult Banks
children rediscover what it meant to look at life through the eyes of a child.
At the very end of the film the balloon lady (aside: I will not spoil it by
telling you who she was played by, but she was fabulous), with eyes as bright
and blue as my grandma’s that day at the kitchen table, looked up at Mary
Poppins and said, “But tomorrow I suppose the grownups will forget.” Mary
Poppins looked at her knowingly, “They always do.” But the thing is, they don’t
have to. They don’t have to suddenly overnight develop an “old soul.” Some of
the people who inspire me the most are those who live in a 60 something year
old body but have the spirit of a child.
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| I Love It When She Laughs |
And oddly enough, that is what much of Christmas is about.
It’s about having your 40-year-old uncle pull out a remote-controlled airplane
and flying it around his living room while the children surround him, laughing
and begging for a turn to operate it. It’s about a 60 something year old aunt
giggling with her niece about a completely inappropriate joke. It’s about a
mom, who is now a grandma, decorating her walker with colorful battery-operated
star lights even though she is stuck using it over the holidays. It’s about
this mom, pretending to be asleep when her seven-year-old comes in, whispering
to Dada that Santa Claus came last night and actually wrote a letter to her (penned
by the right hand of said mom) and the mom laughing to herself in quiet glee
that her daughter believed Santa cared enough to write her a note.
Something else Mary Poppins
Returns taught me is this is magic doesn’t have to be contained to Christmas
or any special day of the year. This magic and wonder, the ability to put into
practice, “When the world turns upside down, the best is to turn right along
with it,” can happen any time. Because that’s what a baby did in Bethlehem so many
years ago. And I imagine the shepherds were laughing to themselves that night,
with child-like amazement, “If God is bringing the Savior of all of humanity to
us through a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, anything is possible.”
Anything is possible, even the impossible!
Mary Poppins
Which is something Mary Poppins would agree with. Anything
is possible. “Even the impossible!” Even a 37-year-old being reminded of the
true spirit of Christmas, well of life actually, through a “kid’s” musical on Christmas
Day. So, when the magic hits you, when you suddenly see through the eyes of a
child, don’t block it, don’t question your sanity, just let it take over you. You
never know. You may be a 90 something Dick Van Dyke doing a dance on an office
desk in big screens across the world. Who knows? Anything is possible.
(Even a writer, who hasn’t written a blog in a year and a
half, actually being inspired to write one on Christmas day, of all days – go figure.)
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Love this!! ❤��
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