The Magic Moment

Happy Saturday, everybody!  I’m so excited to be posting today because Christmas Eve is my very favorite day of the year.  I’ve always loved Christmas Eve.

Back when I was a little kid, it was a night of wonder when I’d try to stay awake and hear the reindeer on the roof, but I invariably fell asleep.  Sometime in the dark of the night, I’d wake up and sneak out to see if Santa had been yet.  He always beat me to the punch, so to speak.  I’d find piles of packages wrapped in 2 colors under the tree.  In each stocking, there would be a piece of wrapping paper, indicating which boxes were mine, and which were my sister’s.  I’d skulk quietly into the bathroom and shut the door silently, before turning on the light to see what was in my stocking.

When I was in high school and college, Christmas Eve meant a day of leisure before heading out for a fancy dinner, a midnight church service followed by gifts and champagne with friends and family until nearly 3:00 in the  morning.

From age 28 through 35, Christmas Eve was the calm before the Christmas Expedition of driving all over creation on Christmas Day.  From central Connecticut, to the Litchfield Hills, to NY State and back again.  A couple of years, those trips took hours through blinding snow.  Quite possibly, we went up hill both ways…without shoes.  Well, you get the idea.

Now, with young children of my own, Christmas Eve is a welcome rest in a busy season.  All the gifts will have been purchased and wrapped.  We enjoy an early dinner before the Christmas Pageant at church.  Preparations will be underway for the next day’s lounge and feast.  The hectic big family party will be behind us with just the Grandparents coming to visit on Christmas Day.  We eat and open gifts most of the day, often without even changing out of our pajamas.  My husband has his trusty Get-Toys-Out-Of-Thier-Packaging tool kit handy.  Worries about holiday bills are put on hold until the new year. 

Yes, Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year.  All the excitement and anticipation of Christmas with the work behind me and the worries deferred.  It’s a happy day filled with wonder as my young children sprinkle reindeer dust on the front lawn and prepare a dish of cookies and carrots for the midnight visitors. 

I, in my kerchief, and Hubby in his cap, sit back and relax before the fire, and await the magic that we know the morning will bring.   Peace on earth, and goodwill to you all.  Whether or not your celebrate Christmas, have a wonderful day tomorrow.  And don’t forget to notice those magic moments and commit them to memory.

Merry Christmas,

J Monkeys

You’ve Got a Friend in Me…

Happy Friday everyone! Casey Wyatt here. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. And for those of you participating in Black Friday, good shopping!

All week, the Scribes have been sharing their thoughts on Thanksgiving.  I’ll let you in on a secret, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love a day that is focused on family and food, but not obsessed with gift giving. Can’t beat that combination.

One thing I love about Thanksgiving is the holiday movie season. My family loves movies. In fact, my husband and I met while employed at a movie theater.

Many studios love to release their big holiday films the day before Thanksgiving. And in 1999, Pixar released Toy Story 2. We were all huge fans of Woody, Buzz and the gang and because we wanted to beat the crowds, hubby and I decided to take the kids Thanksgiving morning.

Seriously, going to the movies on a major holiday is not big on people’s to do list. Trust me, as a former theater employee who used to work holidays, I speak the truth.

I called my mother and told her about my plan. We’d go to the very first show and get to her house in time for dinner. And then I waited for her reaction. I mean, who puts Toy Story 2 ahead of Thanksgiving?Well, instead of balking, she was ecstatic. She and her best friend (also my kids’ Godmother) would meet us there. I don’t know why I was surprised. My mom is a card-toting member of the Woody fan club and there was no way she wanted to fight the crowds either.

That morning we arrived at the theater and the six of us camped out in prime seats: center aisle – not too far down and not too far up. As expected, there was barely anyone in the theater with us.  The kids were happy. They had popcorn, drinks, and candy my mother had snuck in for them. My youngest, only four at the time, was so light-weight my husband had to hold his seat down, otherwise, the poor kid would’ve been trapped like a human accordion.

The lights went out and we were all giddy with excitement. This was an “event” –  all of us watching the movie together. Right then and there, I was so grateful to have such a wonderful family. My mom is the coolest person in the world. She’s never lost her child-like sense of wonder and I should have known, out of everyone I knew, she’d be up for something different.

The movie was an incredible story (Pixar has the best  writers in the world) and we all loved it. I don’t really remember the rest of the day. I know we had turkey and all the fixings. My brother probably laughed at us for going to a movie that morning.

But deviating off the traditional holiday path, got us all thinking. What if….?

So we made plans for Thanksgiving 2000. We would all travel to Walt Disney World on Thanksgiving morning.

And did we all go? You bet we did. But that is a post for another day!

What non-traditional ways have you spent the holidays? Have you ever wanted to ditch the normal routine and try something completely different? Enquiring Scribes want to know.

Happily Ever After…

Recently I was on a date with a guy who told me that ideally he would like ten children but that realistically he would settle for five. I just blinked at him for a moment while mentally I was running for the hills.( If you think you’re getting ten kids from this chick you’ve got another thing coming!) My mother is one of ten children and I am one of five. I know what it’s like to be raised in a big family and sometimes it’s awesome and sometimes it stinks. (I don’t think my mother has had a moment alone since 1981.) I would NEVER want that many kids but that guy did because that was his version of Happily Ever After.

Everybody loves a happily ever after. It’s the reason we love romance novels. We read those lovely little epilogues and usually find the hero and heroine married with a couple of kids or a baby on the way and everybody is happy. Of course real life isn’t so neat but it still got me wondering about real Happily Ever Afters. I belive that people do achieve them. But are Happily Ever Afters the same for everybody?

I was having a conversation with a married woman who for whatever reason decided not to have children. She told me that people often looked at her with pity because of this, like there was something wrong with her. Society likes a nuclear family with the husband, wife, two kids and a dog but she didn’t want that. She said that people didn’t realize that she is extremely happy. That while her friends are struggling to put their kids through college she and her husband were taking trips to Europe and going golfing and having more fun in the forties than they did in their twenties. I truly belive she is living her version of Happily Ever After.

Happily Ever After

Donny Deutsch recently said that people biologically aren’t meant to have just one partner. That ideally(secretly) people did want the children and the dog and even the spouse but the spouse should live in a separate house down the block. This way both partners could have the stability of the marriage and the freedom to do whatever. He might be right. For some people that might be the perfect situation.

There are a lot of people who say there is no such thing as Happily Ever After. Personally I don’t know what my version of Happily Ever After is. I know that right now I’m happy. I have good friends, a quiet apartment, a job I like and the ability to buy as many shoes as I want without having to explain myself to anybody. 🙂 Will that make me happy in a few years? Who knows?

I hope you are all finding some kind of happiness in whatever you are doing. Share with us. What do you think about Happily Ever Afters? Do they change? Do they really exist? What’s your version? Think I’m full of baloney? I’d love to know what you think.