Last weekend, I acquired the video of Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, a Muppet Christmas special that debuted in my childhood. This morning, as my daughter and I settled in to watch it, I wondered if it would hold up. I mean, many things we remember with great nostalgia don't. Often, what seemed brilliant to us when we were kids just doesn't make the grade when we are grownups.
It started well--an intro by Kermit the Frog is always a good sign. The pace was slow, though, and I thought for sure I'd be losing my viewing buddy. (It's amazing how the pace thing is true for almost anything from my childhood. Clearly, computers and the pace of media in general have decimated our attention spans!).
The thing is, a good story, a good mix of funny and warmhearted music, and, of course, a Muppet sensibility all go a long way to making something timeless. While I don't know if I will be watching the video over and over (as I would like to have done as a child, when specials then aired just once a year, and you couldn't watch things like How The Grinch Stole Christmas and It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown every day), I can definitely say I'd watch it again. It wasn't just a throwback to childhood--it made me laugh and cry as an adult too.
So, it turns out, even in these days of blogs and tweets and chats (in which we don't even slow down to spell out every word), what was meaningful to me at a slower pace several decades ago can still be meaningful. It doesn't mean I will slow down my pace on a daily basis--there will be emails to read and news to post and.....
It just feels good to know I can still slow down when I want.
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