Don't Give up on the Train

It’s Christmas time and that means decorations, presents under the tree, homemade goodies, ice skating in the city, cold winds and warm fires but in my house it also means one more thing: cheesy Christmas movies on TV. And thanks to the invention of Tivo and such channels such as ABC Family, Lifetime and Hallmark, we have enough taped to fill every second of the season with heart warming, made for TV moments.
I make fun of them, grumble and roll my eyes every time I walk into the living room but the truth is (and you have to promise to keep this a secret from my mom) I actually like the cheesiness. And to be completely honest, every once in a while some of the movies take the typical plot line and surprise you with a pretty good story.
That being said I watched one of these ‘gems in the rough’ yesterday about a little boy who thought it was pointless to wish for something as big as a toy train under the Christmas tree. The wise reply he received after sharing his woes film was this: “if you don’t have dreams they can’t come true.”
I don’t know why but that one sentence keeps playing through my mind as if my brain and not just my TV were Tivod. Play. Rewind. Play. Rewind.
And the more the phrase runs through my mind the more I wonder about the dreams we stop believing in, trains we put out of our mind: a job, a spouse, a family, a business, finally seeing the world, whatever it may be, because it would be too disappointing not to see them under the tree.
The point, I suppose, is this: in the spirit of Christmas and in hope of a better year than last, dream again. You should know the little boy in the movie got his train. And although I know that life doesn’t have quite so many happy endings as Hallmark movies sometimes good things do happen to those who believe.