This week is about Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey and continuing to dream.  Minor spoiler alert.

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is a new holiday special on Netflix.  It has a great cast, awesome music, and a story that gives you all the feels.  The film is about an inventor, Jeronicus Jangle, who dreams of the most amazing and beautiful toys.  He then makes those dreams a reality and builds the most imaginative toys and gismos of all time that bring joy to people of all ages.  If you’ve watched any movies you know there needs to be conflict, so you can imagine what happens.  Something occurs and he loses this ability to dream big and loses his ability to create these amazing inventions.  The rest of the story is about losing this and trying to repair it again.

What does this have to do with anything?  2020 has been a hard year for everyone.  I don’t know about you, but when I’ve been hit with hard times this year I’ve felt myself retreating.  I’ve shifted from being in a world to thrive to trying to merely survive.  When I’m in this survival mode, it’s about self-preservation and finding ways to make it to the next day.  This is understandable and okay.  At the same time, I’ve found that when I’m stuck in this mode I don’t dream.  I don’t imagine.  I don’t dream as much.  I don’t see a world filled with possibilities.  Instead, I see a world of scarcity and fear around every corner.  Seeing a world of fear and scarcity makes me shrink and be smaller than I am.  As we start to move toward 2021, I wonder what we will be like.  Mainly, I wonder if we will all start to dream a little more again.  I hope we dream more, small dreams, big dreams, bright beautiful dreams, and then I hope we make them a reality. 

The challenge: Will you dare to dream?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry