The Princess Speaks

And the Princess fell into a deep, deep sleep…

by snowyqueen

Dear Followers:

This year with Mary Engelbreit has been a journey of discovery and a challenge to fill my days with the sweetness of life. The guidance provided by each illustration and thought in ME’s “Life is Sweet” page a day calendar of 2012 has helped me find my writer’s voice. Though this is the Princess’ last entry I find I have more to say and the discipline this commitment required has given me the tools I need to tr y my pen at other projects.

Some of you read along with me throughout the year, some jumped in and out, and others more recently discovered the Princess Speaks I am grateful for the motivation your following gave me and humbled by the 305 comments made by my biggest fan. (You know who you are)

Being awarded the Versatile Blogger Award was an honor, one also earned by my own favorite blogs. Through this experience I virtually met the creative authors of, “The Detailed House,” “The Daily Graff Photo blog”, “Girl on the Contrary”, and the “Jotter’s Joint.” A special thanks to Leslie Carter, who was generous with her thumbs ups. With a piece to write most days I did not have enough time to browse and follow the many more fascinating blogs hosted on Word Press. It will be a pleasure to discover others.

Though I an amazed that I was able to navigate the web enough to start a web-page in WordPress, I know that my lack of technical skill in reaching out through social networks, inability to figure out RSS and such has been disappointing. SEO’s continue to evade me and GoDaddy is still just a thing I might say to my Dad.

I became addicted to the stats on the dashboard. But the chart that I loved the most is the one that locates countries from which Princess readers hail. As of today there are 66 countries that know a little bit about the Princess. I am intrigued about who the readers may be and what someone in the Congo would find relatable in what I had to say. I will never know them but I am grateful for those connections.

To the fifty-one constant followers, I thank you for your attention and interest. Maybe I would have written this full year of entries if just my family and friends followed me through 2012, but I am thrilled that unrelated others, who are not obligated to read because I will quiz them, spent time with the Princess.

Though I will continue to write for “creativity-portal” and “Baby Boomers.Com” on occasion, I will now apply my writing time blocks to reworking “ The Daughters of End’s Gate” with my coach Naomi Rose, the “Christmas Tale of Emma and Melanie”, The Too Big Pixie” and the novel sized “The Promised Tale”. Look for an ebook from me in the next year. (I’m pretty sure it will be free on Barnes and Noble)

I’m a little worried about what I will do tomorrow, but then after all this time, if you know me at all, you know that I will always find something to worry about. For the next 365 days Mary Engelbreit’s new 2013 page-a-day-calendar will take its place on my desk, but I leave it to her millions of other fans to annotate it.

Many thanks for keeping me company as I worked to realize the ambitious goal I set for myself,

Susan (The Snowyqueen of WordPress)

books Mary Engelbreit writing

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Life will find a way…

by snowyqueen

December 31: Party girls

I love a good party as much as the next guy; oh wait, no I don’t. So it seems fitting that on New Year’s Eve Roy and I wordlessly agree to stay home every year. Of course, for us it is the anniversary of a fire that destroyed our home and everything in it. When asked about New Year’s Eve plans, we always joke that we are going to stay home so that our house doesn’t burn down.

But this year, Roy didn’t make it to midnight. Flipping through the channels I decided that spending New Year’s Even in Times Square in person was the only way I could watch the ball drop for the sixtieth time. So I went over to Netflix and picked out a documentary that sounded interesting. Without thinking much about the connection of the subject to our own experience with devastating loss I chose to see, “The Tsunami and Cherry Blossoms.” (Come on, don’t tell me you’re not grabbed by the title.)

As you would expect the start of the film was chilling. Standing on a hill above a coastal town a family filmed the destructive sweep of a 100 foot wave giving the viewer the feeling of being a part of the disaster in real-time. We listened to the amateur photographers go through three of the five stages of grief in the minutes it took to destroy the entire town. At first they did not believe what they were seeing, then they rooted for the water to recede, but soon they could only watch in horror as it just kept coming. Just minutes after all of the houses and roads were overcome; it became obvious that people and places they had loved could not have survived. Their despair was palpable.

For the next half hour of the film we saw in stark reality the destruction the tsunami had wrought. People were interviewed and told their story of survival and loss. It was heart-breaking. Later the handful of people in this small town, who had just begun to think about rebuilding were told that the radiation levels reached would render reconstruction untenable for years to come.

But then an amazing thing happened; the cherry blossoms. In Japan the cherry blossom season is a deeply spiritual time. Generations introduce their children to the wonder of the budding, blooming and snow of petals which accompany the cycle of this spring event. Millions flock to public places and private gardens which are studded with cherry trees and contemplate the symbol of regeneration.

The displaced survivors as well as those unaffected around the country took special comfort from the cherry blossoms after the earthquake, tsunami, and irradiation. All across the nation buds formed and sprang to life opening to full bloom within the space of weeks. It appeared that despite this disaster thousands of families dropped what they were doing and traveled to public parks pink with blooms, as if on a pilgrimage.

Though the outpouring of sympathy from around the world and the stirring of the early stages of reconstruction brought home the message that life would go on and lives rebuilt, the whole of Japan visited their favorite places for cherry blossom viewing, just as they had been doing for centuries. Millions spent two weeks marveling at the inability of even such an overwhelming disaster to destroy these delicate symbols of rebirth.

In the final clips, a man from the town we had seen destroyed; a man who had lost everything else, stood in what had been his backyard and tearfully admired his prize cherry trees that had budded and bloomed as if this was just any other spring. He remarked that though everything around them had been destroyed, the cherry trees remained, unaffected and blooming as they had since his great-grandfather had planted them.

Suddenly the odd title of the film, “Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms” made perfect sense. More than that it reminded me of something I had not thought of for many years.

When the work to replace our house was finally ready to start Roy and I walked around what had been the basement, but was now a cracked and blackened hole. Standing where our front stoop had been I noticed something green peeking out of the scorched ground. Leaning closer I realized that it was a hosta, a survivor from the bed that had surrounded the porch. Somehow, despite everything the hosta was unfurling its leaves just as it had every spring since being planted years ago.

I dug up the tender shoot and planted it at the edge of the yard near the shed. When everything had been put right, I moved it back to the bed I was building next to the front porch. Over the next ten years I worked my way around the damaged lot tilling the builder’s sand, enriching it and creating garden beds everywhere. I filled each new bed with my favorites of that year like lilac, hydrangea, azalea, aster, viburnum, and bamboo.

All of these are beautiful, but when the spring comes, our garden comes to life with hundreds of hostas. Some striped, some solid, some blue and some gold, from giant to tiny, hundreds of hostas dominate the landscape.

And just as the Cherry Blossoms in Japan will heal that country, that single hosta, blooming where nothing should have survived helped me complete the last stage of grieving our home.

hosta

Whew, now that we are moving on maybe next year we’ll actually go to a New Year”s Eve party. Or, eh, maybe not…

Family Home Mary Engelbreit

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Another 50′s Day in Paradise…

by snowyqueen

December 29/30: Every mother is a working mother. Wives-tale saying

As prolific as Mary Engelbreit is, it is clear that she is a career woman. But her illustrations and comfortable characters show us a Mom at ease with children, dogs, husbands and grandchildren. She is clearly a working woman who never skimped on being a mother.

My Mom was sometimes conflicted about being a stay-at-home Mom. It started out okay, everyone she knew spent their days lingering over coffee, volunteering at the library, playing bridge, arranging flowers at the Garden Club and keeping house.

In the sixties, it became less popular to be a Mom who did not work outside the home. My sister worked starting in high school, and I was determined to be a career woman. Mom had trouble relating to this, but the social changes made her wonder if she was missing something.

Ironically, her mother had been an on-again off-again realtor throughout her life, working only when she wanted to make some extra cash. Every broker in town hire her when she felt like working because she could sell snow to an Eskimo. After a few months, having racked up a prodigious sale rate, she would quit again and go shopping.

Like most of my friends I liked to have my Mom home with me all the time. We read books, went to the beach every day in summer, made cream cheese and olive sandwiches, and headed out to Atlantic City to see Nanna’s whenever the mood struck us. She decorated and re-decorated the house with an eye that most interior designers would have envied. So, by the time I was in Junior High I began to feel selfish; an impediment to what she was really meant to be.

My Dad like most men of that generation did not want my Mom to work. It was a point of honor that his wife did not need to work. It was important that she be home with us and when we were no longer so dependent it was her job to take care of him. Occasionally she would rebel and threaten to get a job. She would have been successful at many things but she never felt confident enough to try any of them out.

When I went away to college, I don’t think Mom was sure what she was supposed to do. But when Dad was promoted and they relocated back to the shore, it was a little easier for her to be an empty nester. She returned to spending her days at the beach in summer and volunteering in winter. But she never figured out how to be a working Mom when her work as a stay-at-home Mom was over.

When my Dad retired and they moved to Florida she never talked about getting a job again. She seemed content enough, and when she wasn’t my Dad sent her up to me for a restorative week. But I think to the end she always wondered about what could have been.

Today being a stay-at-home Mom has regained some cache. But it is the rare mother today who can afford to stay at home. Those who do often work from home or return to work when her children reach a certain age. My mother was a working mother, but she never was a mother who worked. I can hardly wrap my head around that, having been a workaholic for 36 years. But then I was never a mother. So as it turns out, I suspect I will wonder to the end, too.

Family Home Love Mary Engelbreit Relationships

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Spring? Bah Humbug…

by snowyqueen

December 28: The hope of spring.

Wouldn’t you just know it? Christmas us barely over and Mary is already talking about spring. I can’t blame her; just about everyone else feels the same way. Today her illustration shows us a hearty bulb sending its head up through inches of the snow.

Out my window there is still a good snow cover, but the relentless sun of the January Thaw is working its will on what was eight inches of the white stuff. If the forecasts are right, it’s unlikely that our first real snow of the winter will last until the week’s end. Bah Humbug.

Oh, the snow in the Village will outlast most of the other parts of town; tree cover and no traffic will see to that. But sooner or later this snow fall will be history and I will be anxiously hoping and praying for the next storm.

I have to wonder how I became so divergent from the general population. I hate feeling hot; that was the start of my obsession with winter. In Jersey when we left the shore due to Dad’s transfer, we moved an hour inland where wind and water were scarce. On summer days the black top smelled like tar and not in the good way the ramp to the beach smells just before you crest the dunes.

I was miserable. I was now living in the Garden State part of the Garden State. What breeze there was from April to October was sporadic and furnace hot. During my Mother’s bid to civilize me I was scheduled for tennis lessons at noon on a black top court. I made it through two lessons and after sliding home in a ball of sweat the second sweltering afternoon I begged off, as I always did with any of Moms ideas for my self-improvement.

My folks bought a membership for a pool club, which was the only thing that made the summers bearable. Though the bike ride over left me “glowing” and needing a cold shower before swimming my first lap, the days sped by as long as I was in the water.

I spent a lot of time at the pool; so much that someone asked me to join the swim team. Despite being a non-joiner I enjoyed the discipline required to swim 48 double laps and execute 10 high dives a day.All went well until we had our first swim meet.

Though I had logged more laps than any of my teammates, and competed in the most difficult Butterfly stroke, I lost every competition by a mile. And one day climbing up to practice my back flip high dive, I realized that I didn’t like being so far off the ground and I climbed right back down, forever.

As a result, I was no longer on the team despite being a strong swimmer, a trained water-rescue graduate, and a fine low board diver. Ironically, the one thing I wanted to join, gave me the boot. But no matter how good I was in practice, I was a disaster for the team in competition.

But, there was no escape from the 100 degree days that just kept on coming. And somewhere around mid-July the whole town started to smell like tomato sauce. Hunt’s had a ketchup factory on the outskirts of town and once the truck farmers started lining up each night to drop off red, ripe tomatoes, the bottling company worked at full tilt.

Now there is nothing like a Jersey tomato; luscious, juicy, tangy and beautifully plump it is beyond compare. But it was disgusting getting up every morning and going to bed every night smelling tomato hanging in the dense, humid air. Those summers put me off ketchup until I was 38 and lived in Michigan where tomatoes are hard and dry. With some distance Hunt’s Ketchup became my tether to the unbeatable tomatoes grown in South Jersey summers.

Imagine my delight when I first moved to the Grand Rapids area of Michigan; lake-effect snow was a deeply thrilling and new phenomenon for me. Piled in towering drifts it built up inch by inch beginning in October and ended up being measured in feet somewhere near the beginning of April. I watched it snow, I played in the snow, I built my first giant snow woman and in the ensuing years I began to live for winter.

The summers were in Michigan were also cooler, sometimes calling for a sweater at the Fourth of July fireworks. I didn’t miss the heat and humidity of landlocked New Jersey at all, although I thought I would expire without access to the sea for decades. So I became a winter baby; happiest when walks layered salt marks on my boots above the ankle and used to dependable white Christmases.

But in recent years snow has become an ever rarer visitor to our state. Last summer we had 36 days with temperatures over 90. Michigan has become an only- slightly cooler version of the South Jersey of my youth; though happily we are spared the pervasive ketchup smell but sadly none of the best tomatoes on the planet.

Therefore, spring in late December is no friend of mine. If spring is here can the steamy summer be far behind?

Spring, Bah Humbug…

climate change Food Mary Engelbreit Spring winter

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Death by Chocolate..

by snowyqueen

December 27: Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate.

I am down with this. Though I love to be in love, right about now a big vat of chocolate is sounding pretty good. I suspect I am being unduly influenced by the current ban on chocolate at my house. Also banned are cookies, butter, chips, pineapple, and vodka. But it is the chocolate I miss the most. Warm chocolate chip cookies, chocolate covered almonds, Skinny Cow Chocolate bars, Milkyways, Pecan Turtles, and Three Musketeers are all banned.

You see in early October I completed the HCG diet for the third time and lost a fair amount of fat. I suspect that I knew I would lose control over the holidays and the stringent diet was a desperate attempt to mitigate the inevitable damage; kind of like an anti-fat preëmptive strike. And on January 1, the thin red line on my scale confirmed my fears.

I admit that I cheated on the ironclad rule that requires the now-thinner diet-graduate to weigh in every day. If the scale shows a two-pound gain, the jig is up and everything even marginally tasty must be eliminated from your diet until you return to your goal weight. I call it the two-pound cure.

Although I did in most mornings, after a big dinner out or a bag of pecans drenched in chocolate, I gave myself a pass, figuring that when my eating returned to normal in the morning so would the number on my scale. I guess I thought that if didn’t see those two additional pounds, it was okay to have that third fun-size Milkyway. As it too often happens, I was wrong.

It’s thinking like this that gets people into trouble. Now it is January 6^th and because I couldn’t stall any longer if I wanted to actually button my jeans I weighed myself to find that I have gained five holiday pounds. So I did what I knew I had to do. I chucked the chocolate cookies, and candy, threw out the chocolate syrup, and poured out the chocolate milk.

But while the mind is strong the body is weak. Last night after Roy was in bed, I took everything out of the junk cabinet in search of any stray chocolate chips that might have escaped notice during the sweets sweep. I don’t think I can call it success that I was successful in my search. Suffice it to say that there is nothing sadder than a grown woman sucking on a single chocolate chip covered in cracker crumbs and cabinet shelf crud.

In the morning I hated myself for this weakness, and accepted the merciless scorn heaped upon me by my scale. Unfortunately, now it is too late for the two-pound-cure. Now I have to return to the despised diet that allows only 500 calories each day made up of food my dog won’t eat.

If I had known this was going to happen I would have filled the Jacuzzi to the brim with chocolate and fallen in, with my mouth wide open. After all isn’t the best dessert on the menu always called “Death by Chocolate?” At least I would have died happy; well, fat and happy.

But don’t worry about me. It will only take me a little while to fall back in love with falling in love. After all, Valentine’s Day is coming and nothing says love like a box of chocolates.

smile

Food Humor Mary Engelbreit

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The Cat and the Penguin…

by snowyqueen

December 26: The Sugar Plum Penguin

Today’s illustration from Mary is a chubby penguin in a tutu dancing in the snow among gobs of brightly colored candies. (It looks to me like she already had a few too many sugar plums on Christmas Eve.) Doesn’t it seem like the day after Christmas should be a respite from food? Maybe she is one of the several million beings on planet earth who are eating everything in sight because on January 1 food will be forbidden; sort of the “Eat now, Diet later” concept. But not everyone spends the day eating. If we could peer into other post-Christmas homes we might see:

Susie: Susie is up early gathering receipts and packing up all the gifts she intends to return today. It isn’t that she doesn’t like her presents, it’s just that her return on returns will multiply her final take thanks to after-Christmas sales.

Retail Stores: The stores are bracing for the “returns” that cut into their holiday sales total. Though some are wishing they had a no-return policy, most put on a brave face for this, the second busiest shopping day after Black Friday. They open early and close late, in hopes that the shoppers will replace their returns with new purchases that will boost their bottom line.

Parents: After nearly a week of hyper family togetherness Mom and Dad decided this morning that today should be a day of rest. Oh, they dress it up nicely as a movie or bowling, but in reality it is just a rouse to get those pesky kids out of their hair for a little while. Ah, three hours of bliss. This short break will get them through the three days, 21 hours and 35 minutes until school starts again.

Jimmy: Jimmy got a remote control helicopter for Christmas and he has spent every intervening hour buzzing the dinner table, rescuing peas from the drink, aka, the bathtub, and waking his sleeping sister by landing the thing on her face. The only hope for restored peace is if this gift, made in China, breaks as quickly as does most everything they export. Awwww… Black Hawk Down

Amanda: Amanda has played with her new Brush-My-Hair Barbie so much that the doll has lost her head. After listening to her sob in disappointment for several endless hours, Dad finally taped Barbie’s head to her body with a thick wad of silver duct tape. Mom suggests that Amanda dress Barbie in her pink stripped turtleneck until another, more long-term, fix is attempted. Amanda follows her Mom’s advice but also announces to Ken and others that Barbie has the mumps.

Socks the Cat: Now that Christmas is over and all Socks got in his stocking was a skinny catnip mouse, it all comes down to this; fun and games with low hanging ornaments on the tree. If the tree gets trashed as a result, well, maybe next year they will get him that three level scratching post he deserves.

Santa: After another grueling Christmas Eve I bet Santa sleeps for 24 hours, postponing the Claus’s Christmas celebration for one full day. So on the day after Christmas I like to think of Santa as sprawled on the couch, stuffed from Christmas dinner, watching a Hallmark movie, and enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done. After Mrs. Claus opens her small box from Tiffany’s, Santa gets to open his gifts. What do you get a man who has with everything? (Including a charge card from Tiffany’s) We will never truly know but I suspect that among his gifts are a bigger belt, an upgraded satellite dish package, and a Day Runner refill complete with daily calendar pages and a thick pad of TO DO page blanks.

Uh, Gee thanks…

Mary Engelbreit

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Step into the light…

by snowyqueen

December 25: It’s Christmas

Though Christmas Eve may belong to Santa, Christmas Day belongs to the Christians. This outpouring of joy at the birth of Christ is a link between believers across the world. Despite knowing that the end of Christ’s story is tragic, every year we are caught up in this celebration of his birth.

If on Christmas Eve we sing Jingle Bells and Up on the Rooftop, on Christmas Day we raise our voices and hearts with a Joyful Noise and Gloria. Stores that were open late last night are closed for Christmas Day, the only day of the year for most, when all employees are assured of a day off.

Our families gather, whether near or far and open the carefully selected presents that represent the gifts proffered to the Christ child at his birth. Even Christian families that rarely say grace, feel compelled to thank God for his great gift to mankind on Christmas Day. We place a star on the tops of our trees to remind us of the star that burned brightly at Jesus’ birth and we break bread together in celebration of that great gift.

Though it is often said that the meaning of Christmas is lost in the undeniable secular frenzy and that a war is being waged against Christmas, everywhere we look we see reminders of the first Christmas. Homes are draped in lights, crèches are displayed on mantels, angels hover on rooftops, and wreaths representing the circle of life are everywhere.

When Roy and I were in Rome we visited one of the earliest Christian communities, the Catacombs. Here early Christians hid from the persecution of the Romans and leaders of the ancient religions, sacrificing a life in the sun for the freedom to worship God in the ways modeled by His Son on earth.

Except for the first chamber that acted as a common room for prayers and celebrations, darkness swallows you as you move into the lower catacombs where this group of Christians spent years. As we walk the guide shares details about the restricted lives of early inhabitants, allowing us to imagine the oppressive sameness of days, months and years in the dark.

Alcoves carved from stone served first as beds for complete families, and later in extended tunnels beyond the living spaces, as final resting places for those who died while hidden here. Beautiful carvings and frescos appear on the walls throughout the tunnels, celebrating God and honoring Christ. This unexpected splendor gracing the otherwise dark featureless tunnels expressed the hope and joy this community generated as servants of Christ. For Christian visitors to the Catacombs, it is impossible to feel anything short of wonder at this example of living faith.

It is considerably easier to be a Christian today. We live in the light, worship without persecution and celebrate Christmas and Easter in both religious and secular ways. But since my trip to the Catacombs I reflect on the high price paid by early Christians. Theirs was an expensive gift given to us, the followers of the faith for which they suffered so greatly.

So, today as sit among the distractions of mountains of wrapping paper, eyes glazed by the generosity of my family and friends, and stomach gurgling at the delicious smells coming from the kitchen, I watch the wings of my treetop angel flutter and remember the real reason for the season.

Family Mary Engelbreit Religion

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For Santa’s Special Consideration…

by snowyqueen

December 24: Santa, bringer of gifts…

David finishes h At home santa is letter to Santa with the clear and certain knowledge that he will not get his wish. Unlike the other children in his foster home he is not asking for a game or a set of blocks: David is asking for his sister Sammi. His foster care worker oversees ten boys in the home and has no time or inclination to help David search for her sister. His last hope is Santa.

Across town a little girl writes her letter to Santa. Because there are just two foster children in this home she knows she will get a gift at Christmas, but the only thing that Sammi wants is to see her little brother. Her foster parents do not know where David is, nor have they been successful at finding out. Although she knows it is unlikely, especially since her foster-sister says there is no Santa, Sammy writes her letter after the house is asleep. Her last hope of seeing David for Christmas rests with Santa.

Four years ago on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s David and his sister Sammi were removed from their home and placed in different foster care facilities. During the intervening time all requests for visits or even information about where the other child lives has been denied.

Somewhere north of the two foster homes a bell rings and an elf opens the two letters which arrive within seconds of each other. He reads them, clips them together and puts them in the pile from which Santa will select the one wish for special consideration this year.

The night-before the night-before Christmas Santa sits at his desk making last-minute changes to his route, and reviewing the letters that the elves have forwarded for his personal review. On top are the two letters from Sammi and David asking to be reunited this holiday season.

He double checks his list of addresses and sees that Sammi and David live within forty miles of each other. Though there are more dire requests in the pile, Santa keeps coming back to Sammi and David. Shaking his head he puts his mind to work on how to bring their wish to fruition.

With a few more key strokes he has what he needs and folds the letters before placing them in the inside pocket of his coat. Nestled next to them is an envelope with the means he needs to grant this special wish.

His first stop is David’s foster facility where he slips a special gift into each boy’s stocking. When he arrives at Sammi’s foster home, he does the same for the two girls. The next morning will bring the answer to their wish, but they won’t know it right away. Satisfied that he has carried out his special consideration task for this year, Santa heads back to the pole.

The next morning all of the children in these two foster homes find a gift certificate in their stockings good for a Day of Skating at the local Speed-Skate rink the next Saturday. While the others shout with excitement, David and Sammi hide their disappointment believing that their wish has gone unanswered.

When Saturday morning dawns all of the children at David’s home dress quickly and board the bus for the short trip to the Speed Skate. After handing over their free pass the clerk gives each boy a pair of skates and before you can say “On Donner’, the children take to the floor.

Some minutes later Sammi and her foster family also arrive at the rink, pick up their skates and take to the ice.

Because David and Sammi have never skated before, both hover around the edge of the rink with one hand on the rail for balance. Just half way around the first time, David and Sammi stand face to face for one moment not believing their eyes. .During their long hug, Sammi whispers that her wish to Santa this year was to see her little brother. In a hushed voice David tells her that his was the same. After four years apart, the two children skate arm-in-arm for the rest of the day, not willing to let go of each other for a minute.

But soon enough the foster care worker is gesturing impatiently for the boys to get ready to board the bus. As they turn in their skates, Sammi introduces her brother to her foster mother who greets David warmly .Before they can exchange information, David’s foster care worker orders the boys onto the bus for the trip back to the facility. David stares out the back window looking for Sammi while tears run down his cheeks. He knew he should be grateful; he had only asked Santa to see his sister.

With a groan the loaded bus begins to trundle away from the door of the rink, but makes an unexpected stop just seconds later. The door swishes open and Sammi’s foster mother steps onto the bus, her eyes searching for David. After a short conversation with the foster care worker the door opens again and she is gone.

Looking out as they pull away David sees Sammi standing alongside her foster mother waving at the bus. Once they are out of sight, he slumps back into his seat. He doesn’t want to be ungrateful, but in some ways those moments together make him miss her more.

Once home, as David moves down the aisle to the door, the foster care worker steps in front of him just long enough to hand him a piece of paper. Reading as he exits the bus, David realizes that the note not only gives his sister’s address and phone, but also includes a hastily written note by Sammi’s foster mother promising to arrange a visit for David and Sammi next week.

As he watches these scenes unfold from his study at the North Pole Santa smiles with satisfaction. David and Sammi are reunited and will see each other often now that a connection has been made. Not only did his plan put Sammi and David in a situation where discovery was assured, he provided a good number of lonely children with a rare holiday treat.

Opening the drawer at the left of his desk Santa places the two letters carefully on a pile of special consideration wishes he has granted over time. The packet is thick and each represents a gift given to those who needed the magic of Christmas the most. With a sigh Santa relocks the drawer and Mrs. Claus gives his hand a squeeze. This, she thinks is the real Santa; the bringer of gifts.

Family Home Love Mary Engelbreit Santa

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There is nothing cookie-cutter about cooking…

by snowyqueen

December 22/23: Frost this.

There is nothing that says Christmas more than a day spent creating one-of-a-kind frosted cookies. Many families share the holiday tradition of baking cookies together. In Mary Engelbreit’s world this love of frosted cookies shaped like reindeer, Christmas trees, and stars is not confined to you and me. A merry snow-mom in a Christmas apron offers a tin of just-baked cupcakes to a snow-baby holding a bowl of chocolate icing. Like most kids participating in holiday baking, this little guy demonstrated that frosting does not need cupcakes to taste yummy. His chocolate chip buttons and cherry nose are offset by the chocolate smeared thickly across his smile.

I love frosted cookies, but I can’t think of them without thinking of Martha Stewart. Some years ago I tore a how-to article from her magazine that boasted a guarantee that if one followed her step by step directions, anyone could create a small Noah’s Ark tree decorated with frosted animal cookies as ornaments. I should have noticed that her guarantee had no penalty if the end result was not as advertised; as is true of my sad attempt at carrying the process through.

It didn’t take me long to realize that to get the results Martha was selling I needed to buy her $79 set of animal cookie cutters, available in high-end department stores everywhere. I hesitated in the store my hand hovering over the box of 10 cookie cutters at $7.99 apiece. It seemed unlikely that expensive cookie cutters could make any difference So I figured that the $17.99 set of animal cookie cutters nestled next to Martha’s would do just fine.

So with my animal cutters in hand I hurried home to get to work. I should have read the recipe before I left because it called for unknown ingredients and a roll of parchment paper. Promising myself to start the project tomorrow, as time was growing short for mixing, rolling, baking, cooling, and frosting a batch of cookies, I headed for the grocery store. I quickly found one ingredient, but the other spices and powdered roots were not for sale at any price. Parchment paper, which should have been in the wax, aluminum, and plastic wrap aisle, was also AWOL.

In desperation I stopped into a specialty food store and spent an additional $55 dollars on ingredients that I will most likely never use again. The last thing on my list continued to elude me and it wasn’t until I thought of the baking section in Joanne’s that I found parchment paper.

Between the flour, sugar, special butter, obscure spices, parchment paper, imitation cookie cutters and gas spent running around, I had spent a total of $85 on the mythical animal cookie tree. That evening I took some time to review the article just to make sure that tomorrow I would be ready.

Bouncing out of bed the next morning I set the oven to preheat, I mixed the cookie dough, rolled it out on parchment paper and began cutting out the animals. Some hours later I shut off the oven because the dough stuck to my cheap cookie cutters turning out horses with three legs, elephants with no trunk, and hippos without ears. It was my own fault I suppose; I didn’t have the recommended $79 cutters. My cookie tree was a bust.

I had a choice; go buy the Martha Stewart cutters, forget the whole thing or make cupcakes instead. I threw the dough out, put my cheap cookie cutters on the Purple Heart pile, used the parchment paper to line my drawers, after which I cancelled my Martha Stewart Living subscription.

After quickly mixing and baking up a tin of cupcakes, I pulled out a few cans of white frosting, slathered it on generously and drowned each cupcake with gobs of red and green sprinkles. I couldn’t hang them on a tree, they weren’t shaped like animals, and they were a sad substitute for my family’s beloved frosted sugar cookies. It must have been the look on my face that disabused all of any thought of complaint. Because of their of comment I never had to use the retort which hung so bitterly on the tip of my tongue, “Hey, why don’t you and Martha go frost this.” Ho-ho-ho…

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Blue Moon

by snowyqueen

December 21: Nature is the art of God. Dante Alighieri

Mary’s illustration shows us a little boy riding a polar bear as gentle snowflakes rain down from a winter night sky. The look of wonder on his face is identical to the one I wear when standing in awe of a beautiful cool, blue winter’s night.

As part of my closing ritual each night, I step out onto the screen porch to watch the night for a few moments. By the time I am ready to turn in all the children are sleeping, most of the houses in the Village are dark, and the silence is interrupted only intermittently by short bursts of highway noise blown our way by a sudden gust of wind.

All throughout the year full moons paint our back garden in colors that cycle from crisp white to harvest gold to midnight blue. Tonight a blanket of snow draped over every feature exposed to the weather amplifies the blue winter moonlight. As a result the night is more twilight than the pitch-black of a moonless night.

The moon angles it’s light to render elongated tree silhouettes flat across the undisturbed field of snow that covers our lawn. Deep shadows pool in places where the garden path makes a sharp turn into cultivated beds hidden from my view on the screen porch.

Minor details ringing the periphery of the lot stand out in sharp relief under tonight’s eerie blue moonlight, amplified by the reflection of the glittering white snow. From my perch, it is easy to pick out the bushy shape of a large stand of Goat’s Beard surrounded by dangling fronds of winter brown Bleeding Heart leaves and the crisp lines of a wooden garden bench.

As a puff of white vapor escapes from my mouth, reminding me that the temperature is near zero tonight. I have been standing here for some time, completely unaware of the insidious chill settling into my joints and numbing my fingers and toes. With reluctance I turn away from this fleeting display of God’s art in nature.

Though the nights to come will bring new evening masterpieces from the Creator into my small part of the world, this cool, blue winter portrait is my favorite in the vast selection of landscape art made visible to us through God’s love.

December 22/23: Frost this.

art Home Mary Engelbreit Nature

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The Princess Speaks

Inspired by Mary Engelbreit's Life is Sweet Calendar

And the Princess fell into a deep, deep sleep…

Life will find a way…

Another 50′s Day in Paradise…

Spring? Bah Humbug…

The Cat and the Penguin…

Step into the light…

For Santa’s Special Consideration…

Blue Moon

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