One of my favorite movies as a child is on TV every year around this time, Babes in Toyland, or as it is also titled The March of the Wooden Soldiers.  It was just on again the other day.  In this Laurel and Hardy film from the 1930's the hapless Stan figures out that they can use the 6 foot tall wooden soldiers to fight the evil Silas Barnabas and his Bogeymen who had come to attack the village.   As Stan and Ollie push the black buttons on each of the wooden soldiers, they all come to life, start marching, and of course save the town.

I loved that scene when I was a young boy.  The soldiers were lined up, motionless, and Ollie and Stan were right next to them when they were pulling out boxes of darts to hurl at the Bogeymen.  "The wooden soldiers, the soldiers!" I would say to myself, jumping up and down until Stan also noticed them and started to push the buttons.

The other films I loved as a boy were The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz and The Ten Commandments.   They had a huge impact on me.  And I realized that all of those movies invovled good and evil; the Bogeymen, the Nazis, the Wicked Witch and the Pharoah, and heroes who overcame them.   That is usually the conflict and tension in films, bad guys vs. the good guys.   As a child, it was nice when goodness won.  And it still is.