Just Imagine...

by Danny Summers

Imagination is a wonderful gift that we all have. I believe we all have the same level of imagination when we are born. You can see so much of this gift in the eyes of children. I see this in our grandchildren's eyes now. You may remember a photo I shared a little over a year ago of our oldest grandson when he was just about 3 and he stood in front of Georgia Aquarium's largest tank, Ocean Voyager.

Here's the photo I shared then. Try to imagine what this 3-year-old was thinking at the time.

As he stood there you could just see amazement in his eyes and his imagination had to be in overdrive. We see this gift of imagination in the eyes and actions of children but what happens as we get older?

Do we lose the gift of imagination... or does it just get covered up with other things?

I believe it gets covered up with everyday grown-up responsibilities, schedules, and all the more pressing things in life as adults. I believe it gets buried. What are we missing by not searching for that imagination we had as kids?

How do we uncover the gift of imagination? It certainly will require setting aside some time to block out the clutter from other things to allow us to relax and start digging deep into that well of imagination that was with us in the beginning. We have to believe it is still there and dig deep!

Last week, JD Boone at Dothan Nurseries shared some results of imagination they had in creating something I want to share with you. It just fits into the idea for this blog message.

Imagine creating a selfie station, what they call their Snow Globe Photo Spot that attracts so many of your audience. Everyone just has to come and have their photo taken there.]

I may be over imagining a little here but actually I can't wait to hear how this turns out for Dothan Nurseries. JD said they got the idea from Pinterest. They purchased the background online, found the metal for the ring, and had about $400 total in materials in setting this up.

I just got an update from JD on Friday and he said, "It's only been up a couple of days now with Thanksgiving Day being one of them. Usually, when we post something on social media, we get a couple of comments and a few more likes. This absolutely exploded. Nearly 100 comments and about 500 likes."

If you want to see these two Dothan Snow Globes larger just click on either to open an image page.

I hope you will admit, what the Dothan Nurseries team did here was very creative. Sure they may have gotten the spark of the idea from Pinterest, but they explored how they could make this happen and customize it to be their own. Imagination doesn't have to mean original. It could simply mean getting an idea from somewhere else and expounding on the idea, making it your better version. I want to say THANK YOU to JD Boone and his team for sharing their imagination. If you have imaginative ideas please share this week in our GroupEs eList.

At the same time as I was working on this message, another Snow Globe story appeared. This one began on November 17, 2022. It is a new edition to an animated film, and part of The Stories of Evergreen Hills™ holiday series by Chick-fil-A called The Snow Globe. It runs just over 7 minutes. In 1 Week it has been viewed over 17 Million Times!

They also launched a 30-second TV ad last Friday (November 25th) based on The Snow Globe so you may see it as well. After you read the balance of this GROUPtalk below, I encourage you to watch this heartfelt message by clicking on the image below to go to our blog page.

As I come to a close on this message, one additional point I want to make is actually a challenge of sorts:

Imagination works every day and in every season, not just for Christmas and the Holidays. I hope you and your team will be digging into where that child-like imagination is for each of you and setting aside some time each day to... Just Imagine!