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Christmas Decorating

First, a note to Ryan: Thank you for the link to the site about Sesame Street. I agree with much of the site. I reported the earlier article about the warning label only because it seemed rather silly and unnecessary... and even though there may be a bit of validity in suggesting the content is better for adults, in the same vein I think history, even of popular culture, is a very useful topic for all ages to learn about. Perhaps a three year old may not need to see all the content of the old Sesame Street today, but I think it could be valuable for him/her to see sometime. The warning system makes the old episodes sound more negative than warrented.

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My wife and I were able to devote today to cleaning and decorating the home for Christmas. It was a great deal of work. Retrieving the various decorations housed in the cement lined "crawl space" accessible from the northern wall of our basement, I pulled out roughly 25 storage containers of Christmas items.

We decorated the two trees, and further decorated all three floors of the home. Special attention was given to the family room, as it is where we spend the lion's share of our relaxation time. Opening and arranging the various decorations was bittersweet. Sweet, for all the lovely memories the items held... from growing up as a kid, to the decorations my wife and I purchased during the first years of our marriage, to the times the kids were newly born, onto items we bought only last year. Bitter, however, it that my mother was not here physically to be with us. My mother loved the Christmas season. She loved baking cookies and fruitcake for us to enjoy, and she loved decorating for the holidays. I thought of her very frequently throughout the entire day.

Oddly enough, I happened to turn on the television while decorating during the late morning, and I happened to scroll upon the Disney Channel. I stopped because I saw Denzel Washington, an actor whose work I find typically to be of exceptional quality and caliber. I let the television play. I stumbled upon a made-for-televsion (original Disney) movie made in 2003 entitled "Full-Court Miracle". This film turned out to be amazingly good. Its plot was comfortably simple and familiar but also unique enough to be captivating. Here is a summary of the film I have reprinted from Wikipedia (below the summary, I continue to comment):

Full-Court Miracle

An African American college basketball star becomes the head coach of a yeshiva's struggling basketball team in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after a knee injury forces him to leave the game. With his coaching the team goes to the finals, but they lose their coach when he has an interview that could land him onto a professional team. Meanwhile Alex talks to his mother to try to get her to understand him better and it seems to work. On the night of the big game she gets Alex's friend to forgive him and says she has something important to do before she can come to the big game herself. Alex leads his team during the game but a storm knocks out the power and the generator doesn't have enough fuel for the remaning time. Both sides agree to play until the generator is out of fuel no matter the time left and resume play. Meanwhile Alex's mother races to the arena where Lamont is playing to try to get him back. After talking to another player from the opposing team she realizes even more that Alex's dreams are not stupid and finds Lamont in the parking lot trying to get his van started to go to the airport. When she arrives his van suddenly starts as if it was waiting for her arrival. At the school the opposing team calls a time-out to eat away the remaining seconds as they're ahead and they'll win. The generator dies and Alex gives up when Lamont suddenly arrives and re-inspires him. Alex heads out into the middle of the court and suddenly the generator restarts. Alex's team wins as his mother finally shows up with Lamont's family. She and Lamont reveal that Lamont had changed his mind and he was going to the airport to pick up his family. Alex's mother went instead so Lamont could go to help Alex. In the end Lamont and his family stay and Alex's mother has him hired as a full time coach. The movie ends with Alex, his family, a friend and Lamont and his family playing a game of basketball and his mother actually turns out to be pretty good.

I was surprised how captivated I was in watching this simple film. The fact that it was a "feel good" film probably drew me in, and the notion that it featured at least ancillarily the Jewish faith, a religion I find wonderfully rich and beautiful, kept me interested. I actually wept profusely at the end of the movie because the film had the typical "working hard and doing good will lead to a good" ending which again is something I feel melancholy and bittersweet about. I truly DO believe that the real purpose I can have in life is a result of working as hard as I can. Additionally, I must try as hard as I am able to "do good" during my time here. It is that life of service that I have spoken about many times in the past. Yet, I feel such a sadness about my questioning the validity of those convictions (or perhaps more accurately... I am feeling deeply my sense of doubt about such matters of life, convictions, philosophies, and my role in life). In so many ways I feel lost, abandoned, and without a rudder to steer me. What I used to feel and believe, I no longer feel is real. It *may* be real, but I may simply have been under a cloud of illusion. That is what made me weep at the ending of the simple movie.

PipeTobacco