Do You Believe in Santa?

One year, several weeks before Christmas, my children and I were in the car getting ready to go Christmas shopping. My son was about six years old and my daughter was about three years old. Out of the blue, my son confidently said,

“Mommy, I know there isn't a Santa Claus. It's you and daddy.”

Saddened from hearing this and because I didn't want the Santa experience spoiled for my daughter, I quickly replied,

“Oh really?” Did you know that when you stop believing in Santa, he stops coming?”

My son's eyes became huge and with complete sincerity, he promptly answered,

“OH, I BELIEVE, I BELIEVE!!”

I have often wondered, why believe in Santa Claus?

When I was little, I loved believing this jolly, round man left me gifts under the Christmas tree. I always knew the true meaning of Christmas had nothing to do with Santa Claus, but to me, he was a wonderful old man that made Christmas “magical.”

I cherish all the memories of my children and their Santa Claus experience, just as I treasure my childhood memories of my Santa Claus experience.

Santa Claus ignites the fuel to our Christmas imagination with child-like magic, enchantment and joyful anticipation. Santa Claus teaches us the importance of giving and the fun of receiving. To me, he brings out the better part of ourselves. He brings out our child-like innocence.

Not believing in Santa was not an option in our home. So, if anyone asks me if I believe in Santa Claus, I will whole heartedly reply,

“I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE!”

 

Hee Haw Hee Haw

The Daily Post challenge: Embarrassment.

When I was working for a large company in our area, I was in charge of our yearly “Awards Banquet” for quite a few years. As part of the Awards Banquets there was always an “employee entertainment” where employees put on “skits” (short plays) for the attendees.

In order to put together the Awards Banquet I had to chair an “Awards Banquet Committee.”

One year, several of the people on the Committee came up with the idea to base our skits on “Hee Haw.” Hee Haw was a popular weekly television show in the 1960's-70's. We all agreed this would be our theme for that year. Together, we began writing out our various skits. We had a lot of fun writing the scripts and came up with great ideas.

Everyone on the committe had some type of role in the skits, as well as any other employees that we could “rope” into it.

We all practiced faithfully and came up with some great skits, costumes and props.

Finally, the Awards Banquet night came. We were all excited and of course, very nervous. I was particularly nervous because of having to get up in front of so many people and “act.” I'm not the type of person that enjoys making a fool out of myself, particularly in front of all the supervisors and managers of this company, including the President and Vice Presidents who came down from Headquarters to attend.

One of the last times I had gotten up on stage in front a room full of people was when I was six years old. Our classroom had to get up on stage and sing Christmas songs for our annual Christmas pageant. I was so scared that I started nervously giggling (instead of singing) and snot came running out of my nose. (I had a cold). That upset me and embarrassed me so much that I then peed my pants. Obviously, after that, I was not enthusiastic about getting on stage in front of a lot of people.

Everyone at the Banquet was dressed very nicely. The women wore long beautiful gowns and the men wore fancy suits. Those of us on the committee wore men's flannel shirts under old worn out denim overall bibs carrying pitchforks and brooms. Our faces were adorned with freckles and we women wore our hair in “pigtails.” We looked just like we were suppose to look; hillbillies from the backwoods of the Ozarks.

We all got up on the stage to do our respective skits. One of my skits included my partner and I moving up and down by bending our knees (like they did in Hee Haw) and singing. Of course, par to course for me, I got confused by the up and down movement and singing our song at the same time, that I forgot part of our song. I WAS SO EMBARRASSED. I wanted to run to the restroom and hide for the rest of the evening.

Because I was the head of the Banquet, I had to go through the evening as if nothing happened.

(At least I didn't pee my pants).

 

Truth or Fiction?

Lately I have been dabbling a little bit in “story telling.” No… not lies. Writing short stories. I apologize to all those who read them thinking they were true stories of my life. “Learning Lessons in Walmart” and “Life is for Living,” are short “fictional” stories. I never meant for them to be taken as truth, and for those who did, I apologize.

In the future, I will put either Fiction or True Story in my Categories so my readers will know and there won't be any confusion.

I really do appreciate those who read them, commented and were moved by these stories.

Further posts from me, especially if they are fictional stories, will be categorized appropriately. Thank you!

Scarey Story of Two Foolish Girls

Vicki, my best friend in the 9th grade was one of those friends that when we got together we could innocently get ourselves in all types of trouble. She was a fun person and loved excitement. I was just drawn to her personality like a magnet and we became the best of friends.

During the early summer between our 9th and 10th grade, she and her family moved to Denver, Colorado.

It was a sad and boring summer for me until I was finally able to fly to Denver at the end of the summer to visit her. Unfortunately, when I got there she was “grounded” over something she did, so we were “house bound”. Therefore, we knew if there was any chance that we could get out of the house, we were going to have fun and make the best of it.

One evening, we were able to get her parents to allow us to go to Elitches, a theme park in Denver. We were thrilled! Finally, freedom! What could we do to have the most fun and take advantage of this one and only chance? Putting our 15 year old minds together, we decided to try and meet some boys. We decided we would sneak out of her house and have them come and pick us up. (Did our safey ever cross our minds? Not even for a second! So foolish! Typical fifteen year old girls).

We ran into a couple of “nice” boys and they agreed to pick us up right after midnight. We were so excited!

The “bewitching” hour came and very carefully, we proceeded to sneak out of her bedroom window. Great! Sneaking out accomplished! (Her parents had no idea).

The boys picked us up and immediately took us to a haunted house. The house looked very similar to this one. Why they chose a haunted house, I have no idea. However, we didn't care. We had our freedom!

We just parked in front of this haunted house and sat there and visited with each other. No kissing and no hanky panky.

Vicki decided to get out of the car and check out the haunted house. I wasn't about to, so I just stayed in the car. After a few minutes, she and her friend came back to the car and we asked them to take us home.

Fortunately for us, they agreed and took us back to Vicki's house.

Just as soon as we got out of the car to sneak back into her house, they started honking their horn and yelling, “YOUR DAUGHTER HAS JUST BEEN RAPED!!” (Not true). Why they did this I don't know because neither one of them tried to take advantage of us. (Thank God!) Maybe they were just teaching us a lesson.

We started running as fast as we could. While we were still running we jumped in through her bathroom window and got into bed as fast as we could. We were terrified!!

As soon as we were in bed and the covers were over us, her bedroom door flew open and her dad was standing there checking on us. Apparently he had heard all the commotion outside. He was satisfied that we were fast asleep and closed the door again.

Whew! That was a close one!

When I think back to this adventure of ours, I can't believe what foolish girls we were.

(This post was in response to the “Scarey Story” prompt from http://curiousflowers.wordpress.com.)

I am also participating in the Zero to Hero Challenge with WordPress. http://zerotohero.wordpress.com.