the_snowman ovenbird I have a deep love for this short animated film, based on a picture book by Raymond Briggs, that was made in 1982. I’m sure I saw it a number of times in my early childhood when it was played on the CBC at Christmas time. There is no dialogue at all. It’s a symphonic poem (music written by Howard Blake) which tells a story in imagery and sound. It explores themes of imagination, childhood, and awe. Midnight’s magic hour brings a small boy’s snowman to life and he is a creature of pure joy and curiosity, fascinated by everything in the human world. The boy and the snowman explore the boy’s home and eventually take a fantastical trip to the Arctic where they meet Santa Claus and dance under the northern lights. The film’s central song “Walking in the Air” has worked its way into my mind’s internal soundtrack and I’ve always loved George Winston’s piano interpretation. Winston’s album “Forest” is one that I’ve always considered a Christmas album because of the inclusion of “Walking in the Air,” “Building the Snowman,” and “The Snowman’s Music Box Dance.” I was quite surprised to find that these pieces do not exist in anything like the George Winston arrangements in the original film. It seems that I have superimposed the two things over each other at some point in the past four decades. Watching the entire film today for the first time since I was child resulted in some intense feelings of nostalgia. I had forgotten how unapologetically sad the ending is. The film brings its imaginative journey to an abrupt end when the child finds there is little left of his snowman in the morning but a small heap of snow, a hat, and some coal. Imagination is a fragile thing, and childhood is brief. The story of The Snowman acknowledges this and leaves viewers with a cold morning and magic’s jarring end. I wonder what moment my own children will pinpoint as childhood’s end when they find themselves in the reflective grief of middle age. I’m not sure their own imaginations ever got a chance to fly. There is no such thing as boredom now, because brainless online content fills every hole in their days. I’ve tried to make space in their childhoods for analogue exploration, but it has frequently been an uphill battle. I can’t tell you how many invitations to imaginative play and engagement with the natural world have been discarded–binoculars, art supplies, a tiny greenhouse for studying plants, a flower press, a camera. I wanted to give them a world of birds and bugs and flowers and music but it’s hard to compete with YouTube shorts and video games. I often wonder if I’ve failed them. I’m not sure they would know how to bring the snowman to life. I’m not sure they would even want to. 251126 what's it to you? who go blather from