Positive themes are threaded through holiday movies, reminding us of some very important life lessons.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Your attitude can influence others. We all know that the Grinch’s had a change of heart, but rarely do we think about why he had a change of heart. What changed the Grinch’s mind about Christmas was seeing how the people of Whoville embraced the Christmas spirit even without all of their material things.
The positive attitude of the Whos is what transformed the Grinch’s cold heart, and that’s one of the most important lessons any of us can learn: we can’t control how other people act, but sometimes our own attitude can impact on them.
We also learn that we need to forget about the presents and learn how to enjoy the holiday season with our families and friends.
The Nightmare before Christmas
There’s life outside your comfort zone. Jack Skellington, king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing year after year for Halloween. Halloween is all he’s ever known, so he’s more than thrilled when he comes across a small forest of trees, each one with a door leading to a different holiday world.
Jack gravitates immediately to the Christmas tree shaped door and discovers an entirely new holiday world. Jack attempts to become Santa and, though he doesn’t quite succeed, his adventures remind us that there is more to life than what we’re used to. There’s so much we don’t know and so much to explore.
It’s a Wonderful Life
You have more of an impact than you realise. You’ve probably seen, or at least heard of, the story of George Bailey, a down in the dumps businessman who is shown what life would be like if he’d never existed.
As he travels through an imagined world in which he had never been born, George realises that he did a lot of wonderful things and had more of a positive influence on the world than he had thought. Like George Bailey, we all have more of an impact on the world than we often realise.
Frosty the Snowman
Make the most of the time you have. Frosty is brought to life by some children and a magic hat, but, being made of snow, his life is destined to be short. Instead of worrying about when and how he might melt, he leads the children who created him on adventures. In his short life, Frosty focuses on fun and friendship, two things we too should prioritise.
* Information obtained from www.positivelypresent.com.
