Christmas Magic

Coca Cola Santa copied from Google Images

I like the Santa of my imagination the best. I think Santa suffers from over exposure sometimes. Just give me a "Ho Ho Ho" and the sound of jingle bells in the air. A glimpse of Santa on his throne in the mall is fun, but the closer you get, the more jarring imperfections are apparent. Even the most realistic Santa is not the same as the magical elf who appears when you are sleeping, and fills the tree with magical, sparkly packages. Norman Rockwell and Coca Cola images will always define Santa for me.

As a child, the most magical time was the middle of the night when I got up for a drink of water and found the dark room transformed. Once I found a beautiful little dressing table with a frilly skirt. Another time,  I swear I heard jingle bells in the air and the sounds of hoofs on the roof, but when I looked into the dark night, I saw nothing. I don't want weather forecasters telling where Santa is, or phone calls or letters from Santa.

A neighbor decorates his whole house with amazing lights every year. We walk across the dark golf course for a yearly visit with Santa. But wise little Mia told me that is not really him. She thought his voice sounded a little like her Dad. She said, "I don't know why he pretends to be HIM."

My son, Cory, was 9 when we moved for a year to Pennsylvania. He didn't believe in Santa Claus that year until he looked under the tree and there was a toy truck just like his stepfather's big rig. It had little mirrors and all the parts and pieces. He tells me he thought that Santa must be real to leave such a perfect little truck that looked as if it had been shrunk. Unfortunately, he also tells me that he later found the box in the trash. I am so sorry for that. I know my mother would never have made that mistake!

My mother and her sister were raised in a children's home in North Carolina. She says they always had a big tree and lots of presents. I don't really know about her Christmas, but I know she made Christmas truly magical for me and my brother and her grandchildren. Jaime once asked me, as Jill has recently, if I would tell her the truth if she asked me a question. I feared a question about the source of babies, but Jaime said, "Grandma is really Santa Claus, right?"

For me, anticipation is everything. That is why I have always loved Christmas Eve more than Christmas morning. After that, Christmas becomes all about the people, the old traditions, the music, the food, and finding a way to make Christmas magical for someone else. Merry Christmas to all!

I Hate the Crazy Target Lady

Copied from Google images

The crazy Target lady on TV makes my nerves jangle. She represents everything I hate about a grab-it-first, get-something-cheap attitude. A bargain is a low price for something you really want or need, but I also believe it should include convenience and a pleasant shopping experience. I don't mind if the stores open early. Shopping at unconventional times used to be a way to avoid the crowds.

I went once to an annual sale at a posh little boutique my friend and I loved. Unlike our usual delightful experience of browsing and finding unique and beautiful things, eveyone waited behind a ribbon and ran when it was cut. My friend advised me to grab everything I saw and decide later what to keep. That kind of "shopping" tends to encourage people to buy things they don't even want. I hated it.

I have heard that people need to spend in order to boost the economy, but I like the idea of buying only what we really need and can afford, maybe even using layaway as I used to do when my kids were small. My wish is that we can all get what we really want and need this year - at a great price.

Willow Manor Ball - Watching from Afar

Sabrina - Google Images

I just couldn't get myself together this year for the Willow Manor Ball. But I didn't want to MISS it. Just think of me as Sabrina, lurking in the tree in the garden with the full moon behind me and watching all the excitement from afar. Enjoy everyone! I will be loving every detail.

Dresses for the Ball

I am thinking about dresses this morning for the Willow Manor Ball. I don't have enough information to properly credit these images. I just typed "1940's ball gowns" into Google and these images appeared. Fantasy fairy dresses and sleek 40's silouettes fire my imagination. Click on the link and take a look.

I am also thinking about dresses from my real life. They exist only in my memory now.

I never saw the first dress. My mother only mentioned this dress one time. She was raised with her sister in Grandfather Children's Home in North Carolina and she had very few possessions of her own. One day before the school prom, she found a beautiful dress laying on her bed. It was a deep pink rhododendren color and someone had donated it to her. She said it was beautiful and fit her perfectly.

The next dress also belonged to my mother. It was a beautiful golden brown matte sateen, ballerina length, with a wide off-shoulder collar, and trimmed with brown velvet ribbon on the collar and at the tiny waist. I asked my mother to give it to me and she did, though my father objected.

I had only one prom dress but I loved it. My friend found it at a local dress shop but was not able to get it. I told my mother about it and we went to buy it. It was an ivory chiffon column dress with floating ivory panels off the empire waist. It had spaghetti straps and beautiful pale aqua sequins on the top. I wore the dress twice but I don't have even one picture. My friend later borrowed the dress to wear to an event. I wonder if she has a picture.

Willow Manor Ball 2011 - Can't Wait!

I am looking forward to the Willow Manor Ball. This will be the 3rd ball I have observed, but only the second one I will be attending. I had so much fun last year. Now what will I wear? And who will be my date? Check out the link to Willow Manor and scroll down to see the balls of years gone by. Maybe you would like to attend. Everyone is invited.

1st Anniversary Wedding Cake

Whoever thought of keeping the top layer of the wedding cake? I need to look that up. What did they do before they had freezers? Anyway, after the trip back from Virginia in the car and a year in my freezer, Steph and Cory finally cut into the top layer of their wedding cake at the beach. Jill is very interested in tasting the piece they are saving for her. Here is what Stephanie had to say on facebook: "Cutting our wedding cake! It survived the first year with very few bumps and bruises- just like us!"



Here is the original. It had a big "C" on top.

4:00 a.m.

I couldn't get comfortable. A nagging pain at the base of my skull. I went out into the dark kitchen to find a pain pill. I was surprised to see water gushing from the sink faucet. I crossed the kitchen and shut it off and looked down the wide, dark hallway leading to the bathroom. Suddenly, I was afraid to go down the hall. I went another way to the bath by the children's rooms. As I got to the bathroom, I could hear them calling out in their sleep. I needed to check on them.

My eyes snapped open and I looked at the clock. 4:00 a.m. I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to pee and take a Tylenol.

Updated to add:
I thought my dream was so interesting that I even put it on Facebook, but it got very little reaction. Maybe it was because I said "pee". I find it fascinating that my body had a little headache and needed to go to the bathroom rather urgently, but my mind put me in a big, scary house with weird clues (running faucet) and crying children.

My dreams always involve interesting houses (or once, an office building) with lots of rooms. I would enjoy that part, but there is always a sense of foreboding and an unfinished and urgent job that I need to do. I know these dreams mean something. I thought maybe I had banished them by deciding they were about wishing I could change the past.

I just hope the day never comes when I can't wake up from these ideas like the people I met at my mother's assisted living home. Only one person I ever met had happy delusions of music and well being. All the others, including my mother on occasion, had disturbing fantasies.