Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks for everyone’s support with the blog and hope everyone has had an awesome 2010, here’s to an even better 2011!

Something about this year has really brought home questions about life. How wonderful it can be sometimes, and how cruel it can be in equal amounts, and how suddenly it can move from one to the other. Without getting to dramatic at this point I felt the speech below (from one of my favourite characters) has helped sum up the times when you feel all hope is lost.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Dir: Peter Jackson

Book: J.R.R. Tolkien

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo; the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going… because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

Not the most poetic or prolific speech, but poignant in its message and something that has helped my understand life a little bit better this year. Hope everyone has some great plans for the new year and always remember, no  matter how bleak life may seem, there’s always something worth fighting for.

Christmas movies watched so far:

Scrooged (1988)

Die Hard (1988)

Love Actually (2003)

The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992)

Batman Returns (1992)

Blackadders Christmas Carol (1988)

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Have fun and peace out!

James