Here comes CHRISTmas!

Five days until Christmas...wow! It comes faster every year and I hear myself saying "Grinch-like stuff" like "I hate Christmas" Why? Because it is too stressful and expensive and fattening! Yes! that is the worst...5 lbs for each holiday season adds up to 200 lbs in the last 40 years! WHAT? I WONDER...WHERE is Christmas? like the song the Whoville kids sang.What really makes it special ? and I realize that it is in the wonder of a child...that is where Christmas is...in the eyes of a child who still believes...the magic is there. I think everyone has a favorite Christmas as a 'child who believes' and mine is the year that I found out that there was no Santa...I was in second or third grade and I remember my grandparents coming over so late on Christmas eve and they said that Santa had to drop some stuff off at their house because he was so busy...hmm, I could swear I heard sleigh bells on the roof that night! Suspicious as I was, I chose to believe...it's like believing in Jesus...you have nothing to lose if you believe in Him and everything to gain if He is who he says He is...Santa was , to my childlike eyes, just like that, besides, at that point, Jesus was just a little baby that was born on Christmas! and He was so special that the whole world got to celebrate. Back to that night...I think I stared at the ceiling all night long and could not wait to get up! And maybe it was just a coincidence that my dad had a few good hauls in his job as a trucker, and that my mom was working as a waitress at a bowling alley and that we were living in a brand NEW house, BUT, it was awesome! I got a Barbie, a real one, with red hair and a "bubble" hair cut and a black and white striped bathing suit. And my grandpa made a "wardrobe" and it was full of Barbie clothes that my mom had sewn. There was even a real fur stole! Jackpot! I was happier than Ralphie in A Christmas Story! I was Ralphie! the female version! My sister ,of course, got the same, a Barbie too and we had to share the clothes but I didn't even care! now my memory becomes blurry here, but I think this is the very same Christmas that my brother got a brand new shiny red bike, much better than a BB gun any day! No danger there...he couldn't" shoot any body's eye out" And, my siblings will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe my sister got a life size Pollyanna doll with long blond hair! She looked just like Hayley Mills, my favorite actress! And she walked too! If you guided her and held both hands,of course! Now I was not forgotten, I too, had a life-size doll...she wasn't Pollyanna,though...she didn't even have a name and she had brown,fuzzy,short hair...Now "bubble" cuts were awesome on Barbie, but downright weird and gross and disgusting on a huge, clunky doll who's leg kept falling off! I got not only the best present of all, but the worst present of all. And I have "carried the scar of this for the rest of my life" as Candice Bergen would say! Whoa! And the best Christmas became the worst for my brother because his bike got stolen soon after, and he too, 'carries that scar' My sister, although, had a Barbie and a Pollyanna! BUT looking back, she deserved the best Christmas because she had earned it. She was a little fourth grader who took care of all of us! We did not have babysitters in the 50's and 60's. We became little adults and I was the "baby" so I got to be a kid for a couple more years anyway. Meanwhile my sister was making lunches and my brother was watching out and protecting us. Where were my parents??? Working, I guess... Christmas day ended with dinner at Me ma and Papa's. They added a "card table" next to the dining room table for the kids and we all ate dinner together...All I could think about was my Barbie...and the fuzzy haired clunker? she was in a corner near the Christmas tree, unappreciated and forgotten already...I never even gave her a name.

All seem to say throw cares away