Jimmy Stewart, Kermit the Frog, & end-of-year lessons from classic Christmas movies

In the final weeks before Christmas, perhaps you (like me) are getting ready to get cozy with some favorite Christmas movies.

There is some debate on which films should make the list of top Christmas movies (is Die Hard in the canon or not?).  For me, there are two that stand heads and shoulders above the rest.

It’s A Wonderful Life and Muppets Christmas Carol.
 
In case you need an introduction/refresher, let me (re)introduce you to the premise of these classics.

It’s a Wonderful Life

Directed by Frank Capra and starring the iconic Jimmy Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life is about George Bailey. 

George owns The Bailey Brothers Business and Loan and, on Christmas Eve, he is having a very, very bad day. 

When Mr. Potter snidely quips, “Why George, you’re worth more dead than alive…” George takes the suggestion to heart.  On the brink of ending his life, George is visited by Clarence, an angel-in-training, and has a chance to look at what the world would be like if he wasn’t in it.
 
*Spoiler* – in the end, he realizes that, despite its disappointments, he’s had a really wonderful life.

Muppet’s Christmas Tale

A fuzzy, muppet-y rendition of the Charles Dicken’s classic, this masterpiece centers on Ebenezer Scrooge, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner…solitary as an oyster.”

Scrooge is wealthy and unbothered, ignoring the plight of the needy and treating his workers like chattel. 

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is warned by the ghost of his dead business partner, Marley, that torment awaits him if he doesn’t change his ways.  Scrooge will be visited by three spirits:  the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
 
*Spoiler*:  Scrooge sees the error of his ways and the many possibilities of his present.  He returns from his nighttime journeys a better man – “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew”

The power of seeing through new eyes
This year has been…hard.  There is much suffering out there in the wide world.  And I’ve seen ugly, ugly parts of people revealed both in conversation and in the headlines.  I can worry that we are sliding into a darkness of hatred or complicit silence.  I get discouraged with myself and with my leaders and wonder if caring for other people really matters that much after all.

And I am consistently in a position, both in my work and in my parenting, of helping other people who are feeling the exact same way.  Maybe you are there too?

What I like about both of these stories, here, at the close of the year, is that they invite us to see the story of this year through new eyes. 

Both George and Scrooge have a chance to look again at the stories that they thought they knew…that they felt they were trapped in. 

And they didn’t look alone – they journeyed back into those memories with trusted companions (Clarence and a trio of ghosts).

For George, the good moments, the many times where he chose to care for those around him (the drugstore, taking over the business and loan, forgoing his honeymoon, choosing to stay and prioritize people instead of profit) were a foundation.  He really did live a good life. 

Maybe that is you – needing to take stock of the ways that you have shown up with care and  all that went well this year.

• All the clients who had “aha” moments of growth and connection

• The man who told me that, after coming to my event, his company changed their policies and supported him with so much more care while his sister died from a tumor

• The woman who said she hadn’t talked to her daughter for a year but found the words to apologize and begin again

• Paddle boarding on Lake Superior

• Conversations of courage and conviction, over coffee and in living rooms, with friends of the heart

• Giggles with children

• Good food, belly laughs, bonfires on the beach, new recipes, great novels

 
For Scrooge, it was a backward glance where he saw the moments where he should have been more for those around him.  Where he walked past the needy and thought only of his bottom line.  Perhaps, as we move into the reflective space of year-end, you realize that there are ways you wish you would have shown up differently.

And maybe you aren’t sure of where you are – are things better than you feel right now or could you use a Dickens-esque kick-in-the-pants? 

This is where a companion can help.  Is there someone you can talk to?  Tell them how you are feeling at the close of the year:  the good, the bad, the ugly, and ask, “is there anything that I’m missing/not seeing?”
 
Hope
For each of these films, the arc is towards hope.  There is still time:  time to delight in the life you have, time to create the life you want.  And that is a good note to end on.

Book Recommendation

Everyone is talking about AI - how it will change the future of work, how it will destroy us all, and everything in between.

Karen Hao is a gifted investigative journalist who was given unprecedented access to Sam Altman and his team at OpenAI.  She writes about the unseen costs of the tech arms race and introduces the reader to Silicon Valley engineers, data laborers in Kenya, and activists in Chile, and offers a critical look at the industry's secrecy and the pursuit of super intelligence.

Empire of AI is immensely readable/disturbing and I already feel so much more competent to have conversations on the future of AI.