Holiday Melancholy, Holiday Magic

Bliss
December 23, 2013

I finally watched Before Sunset (it had been on “very long wait” on Netflix) and it’s a good thing I didn’t watch it with a guy. I blubbered through most of the movie and I don’t think that would have made a very good impression.

It’s not that the movie ends all tragic-like—and it doesn’t—it’s that so many of the scenes just about killed me. After it was over I continued to sniffle as I poured the makings of a Black Russian into the cocktail shaker.

Finally busted out the birthday goose.

Come next morning, I was still teary-eyed and melancholy and, for just a second, tempted to splash Kahlua into my morning coffee.

With its themes of disillusioned romanticism and missed chances to connect with the right person at the right time, I’m thinking maybe the movie struck a nerve somewhere.

Nah!

So, on a total last minute whim and to cheer myself up, I drove to the nearest movie theater and saw Disney’s Frozen. When I had heard that it was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, a book I loved as a little girl and read over and over until the spine cracked and the pages fell out, I knew I had to see this movie pronto.

Of course it was reimagined the way only Disney can reimagine it. Being in the theater with all the little kids, who oohed and ahhed and laughed and cried and whispered “oh, no!” and “that was cool!”—well, that was just priceless. It’s fun to say, sometimes, with a touch of cool cynicism, “Oh, the Disney version,” but really, it’s the reason we love Disney so much. It’s the fun and the laughter and the magic and the friendship and the family and the love. It’s the stuff we really can’t have too much of in our lives, especially around the holidays.

View of the cloud-and-snow-capped mountains from outside the movie theater after seeing Frozen.

How do you cheer yourself up when hit with an unexpected case of the blues?