Popcorn, Blankets, and Movie Marathons

Our holidays are drifting along with no plan at all. We haven't signed up for a single holiday programme — just endless playing, and thorough, deliberate laziness. Some days we walk along the beach or around the neighbourhood, other days it's a grocery run, and when boredom hits its peak, the mall or the library. We cook dinner most nights, watch movies late, and sleep in as long as we like. The kids' friends come and go, sometimes staying the night, and the days stretch out loose and free.

At the start of the holidays, Min went to the mall with her friends to see Toy Story 5. The other two and I haven't seen it yet. Instead, we loaded up on the kids' favourite popcorn from Farro, ate an early dinner at five, and marathoned Toy Story 1 through 4. Andy, once so small, was suddenly grown. The toys who'd once squabbled over love saw off their grown-up owner, bound together now by friendship instead. Someone finds a new love; someone else sets off in search of an old one.
On these cold-nosed winter nights, we'd switch on the electric blanket, pull the covers up, and sit together crunching popcorn. There were several nights like that. After Toy Story came Moana. With the live-action Moana on its way, we picked it for movie night. The next day, walking along the Mairangi Bay beach, we shouted "I am the Moana of Mairangi!" at the waves lapping our feet. The day after that, we watched Moana 2.

Both films happened to be in cinemas at the same time, so wherever we went, Toy Story and Moana merchandise kept catching our eye. Walking past the bookshop, Typo, or Smiggle, familiar faces would be waiting out the front like old friends.
It struck me — kids who once lived among apartment blocks are now growing up with a lawn for a yard and a beach within walking distance. The toys and the boy who outgrew them, the girl raised by the sea and the hero beside her — each of them grew a little by stepping past the edges of what they knew.