Amongst the Childhood Memories; Christmas Characters Re-visited

Christmas is fast approaching. It is clearly evident that the shopping centers are starting to prepare earlier and at the same time people are too busy to notice and start thinking about it later and later. This is just the best time for the storybook characters to appear in their fancy best.

So, I found this Facebook page called 'Make your profile picture your favorite character until Christmas' and I 'liked' it. It was actually for the last year but who cares. This is cool, I thought and the next thing would be actually to do it. The picture attached to this posting shows where I have come to. My choice for this year will be the White Rabbit dressed as a Christmas character. I actually met him at the local shopping centre and was able to be photographed with him.

Steps to take when choosing your favorite profile character until this Christmas

1. Overall attitude

The first step is to decide if you like a traditional or recently created popular character as a favorite. Are you a traditionalist or a modernist? In the world of possible characters it makes a big difference.

Traditional characters for Christmas time would enhance the compassionate attitude of the season. Then you could also go for the quirky, or you could go for the elves. That would be enhancing the fun of the season. There is also the 'creepy' way.

My choice of the White Rabbit dressed as a Christmas character is somewhere between, a traditional storybook character with a quirky look about him. Mr Carroll could approve that, I think.

2. Following the times or maybe not

Step two is deciding do you what to follow the times or do you want to keep to the old look.

Sitting in a cafe at my local shopping centre observing this year's children's storybook parade I noticed that the characters walk much quicker than before.

The Loony Toons characters that marched past us were very agile. They are also taller and more streamlined and they have long skinny legs. No wonder that they can dance and sing and jump around the stage like anything. The other storybook characters were clearly influenced by Dr Zeuss characters or by the latest Christmas films.

The most alarming observation in my mind was that the Mother Santa and all her elves were so small and skinny. She wore high heals to boot. OMG, I say. They were cute, though. The tiny elves with skinny, skinny legs all dressed in green and red. On the positive side, the number of the little elves has grown. Instead of one round Santa and an elf, there are huddles of them all around the shopping place, including the Cat in the Hat and the Chrich.

Going with the flow is my choice. It allows for full enjoyment of all the new that has been created and lets you be inspired by the moment. If the old is reinvented, all the best for that, too.

3. Being charmed or not

The third step is to decide if you will be charmed or not by this new development.

So, I chose to be charmed by the crowds of tiny Helpers and Storybook Characters. For my favorite character I had three contestants, namely the Moomin Mother, Mad Hatter and the White  Rabbit.                                      
          
                                                           

   

It was a tough choice until I met the White Rabbit in person. This is a point for direct marketing, I was immediately persuaded.

Merry Christmas Season to Everyone! Let's be compassionate in small things as well as the big ones this year!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Celebrating Childhood Memories Contemplated in the Light of Sciences and History of Ideas Versus Modern Film and Literature.

“A history of science is rich in the example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate context for a pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another.”
(J. Robert Oppenheimer)








For the last week on Facebook (FB) people have been celebrating childhood memories. FB users have been encouraged to change their profile to their favourite childhood characters, either from literature, art, films or cartoons and such. Many of my friends have taken up the challenge. I have had a number of interesting discussions about our memories with my colleagues and friends, starting from “I don’t remember any of my toys or characters” to “such a wonderful childhood we had!” My friends are displaying a variety of characters on their profiles. I am noticing some culturally bound adaptations, though. But apart from that, this great multiplicity just proves that as people are individual as personalities, so are their childhood memories as represented by the characters they choose.




Lately I have also been reading a lot about the function of the brain and neuroscience in how our worldview keeps changing in accordance of how we experience our reality. Applying my new knowledge on brain neurons and their effect on our development and the role of childhood memories on our lives I am asking myself how the childhood characters we grew up with have influenced what we have became as adults.

I would say that over the years of maturing I have moved from Astrid Lingren’s Pippi Longstocking and Tove Janson’s Little Myy (because of the Finnish voice of the actor) combined with Mary Poppins as a movie character as my most memorable figures to Moomin Mum’s contemplative approach and Mrs Banks’ determination to save the world. However, much of it is still in relation to yet another memorable character, namely their ‘bag of tricks’.




I distinctly remember that sequence of the Mary Poppins’ musical where Mary opens her bag and takes out the lamp and other furniture to decorate her room. This similar scene was nearly copied by Hermione, in the last instalment of The Harry Potter movie series, where she opens her small beaded handbag and takes out the whole tent and camping equipment. I particularly have always admired the Moomin Mom’s handbag, where she finds what is necessary to fix anything and everything from sorrows to fun. Pippi’s bag of gold coins given to her by her father is the strait forward, no nonsense, representation of the modern world where money can short-circuit a lot of efforts for survival. No magical trick needed except for perhaps the adventurous spirit to find a historical shipwreck full of treasure. This kind of endeavour might not prove to be an easy task any more in the world where everything is already mapped quite extensively.

However, the bag of tricks remains in my mind a metaphor for daring to reach into the subconsciousness and look for out of the box ideas for new approached to solving problems presented to the world we live in.

It was a wonderful week to focus on such things from the childhood memories point of view. Now that Christmas is coming we might find a new ways for compassionate attitude to spread around the world. Here are some references on Pippi Longstocking you might be interested in:



Gaare J and Sjaastad Ø. 2002, Pippi & Sokrates, Filosofiska vandringar i Astrid Lingrens värld. Smedjebacken, Sweden. Natur och Kultur

http://www.dannelseskaravanen.dk/int_conference/socrates_pippi.htm

http://www.paideia.org/docs/research/AnnPihlgrenDissertation.pdf

Enjoy!