The artificially colored television set is playing "It's a Wonderful Life"
It is my fathers favorite, which isn't much of a surprise because I believe it's a fathers kind of movie. As George Bailey meets the girl who will one day be his wife he is a dream filled man.
Filled with ambition and enough money in his hand but he never reaches his dreams.
I remember I used to dislike it, the whole thing.
Even though we just watched it once a season for my father.
Truth is I didn't understand it, or probably more correctly I couldn't.
As a child, dreams seem as close as the moon
Which in our hope filled eyes is never that far, just a couple more summers away,
But those summers come and go and the moon seems to be running away
Staying just past our fingertips,
But as we are looking up we forget the ground
Forget the happiness that we have already found
And point at those who got a lot farther than we ever could
There comes a time when you have to look down
And find that you've been living the dream all along
I think that's what the movie means
Finding that reality will always be better than the dream
And I'm sure one day when I'm a father myself, it will be my favorite Christmas movie
And I'll make my kids begrudgingly watch it knowing that they can't understand
But one day they will
One day their dreams will escape their hand.
And when that happens they will still be able to look up and say it's a wonderful life.