It’s Sunday night…Do you know where your family is?
Today is actually Friday in another weekly installment of the Twilight Zone. And at this point, you may be hiding from your dearest family…as this sheltering in a safe place has started to resemble a house arrest.
But that’s the present year, 2020 and I digress.
It is 1979 and my family is cuddled up on our couch after a Sunday dinner, waiting for the Wonderful World of Disney’s opening credits to begin. As the fireworks explode over Cinderella’s Castle on our television set, the only question of uncertainty on our minds is what will Tinkerbell reveal tonight?
This was our Sunday family tradition we could count on…. And by the time Michael Eisner and Mickey Mouse were introducing the show in the late 80’s, Disney’s Wonderful World, Walt Disney, and the Disney Sunday Movie were part of my family’s vernacular.
These Sunday nights, in our pajamas, with no where to go, and with the finest hour of television was where we authentically connected. There was downtime and togetherness and I treasure those memories.
My mother was five years old when she saw Mr. Walt Disney himself ceremoniously stepping off a raft from Disneyland’s newest attraction, Tom Sawyers Island in Frontierland. My Grandpa squeezed her hand and said, “There he is!” They boarded the next raft.
Nearly two decades later, my mom was squeezing my brother’s hand on Main Street USA, opening year at Walt Disney World. She was smitten. And once I was old enough to toddle, we loaded up our camper to claim stake at Fort Wilderness Campground at Walt Disney World, and continued to visit nearly every year of my life after.
While I am beyond grateful for those magical experiences, I look back at the realization of how important that family time was in my childhood and that I am curating the same experience for my sons.
Walt Dsney had this exact notion in mind when he created the Happiest Place on Earth…”a family park where parents and children could have fun together.” Walt Disney World brought mine and so many families together.
I know this is hard. But we are all in this together and what if we just stopped, went inward and considered this a gift of time. Of togetherness. What would happen?
