Saturday, December 4, 2010

The softening of Scrooge Catalyst

After my annual Christmas screed last night, I got one of the longest e-mails I've ever received from the BRD.  And it was one of the sweetest.  She remembered many happy things that happened to her on Christmases during her childhood.  One of her fondest stories was about the year she circled several items in "the Christmas catalog" that she'd like to get but did not mark the doll she really wanted because she knew it was too expensive.  Nevertheless, when the presents were opened on Christmas morning, there for her was the doll.  She was amazed and extremely grateful.  But, she said, she was so nervous about it's beauty that she never took it out of its box to play with.  She would look at it, occasionally straighten it's dress, but she kept it prim and pristine for over 20 years!  She finally gave it to her younger sister to give to her first daughter when she got old enough to appreciate it.  Now that's a Christmas story to melt any old Grinch's heart.

And to compound it, SWMBO and I were talking about it and she said the same exact thing happened to her when she was a girl.  Her mother later told her when it arrived in the mail she knew it was a mistake because there was no way they could afford it.  She had a serious moral dilemma that she fought over in her mind for days.  She resolved . . . and this is a woman who had a somewhat casual relationship with religious belief . . . by determining that the doll had come for her daughter by divine intervention.  Well!  What can I say?

What I had forgotten when I was garrumphing (you can look it up, it's in the fictionary) was all the Christmas goodies.  And today that started, with SWMBO's first Christmas cookies coming out of the oven.


Needless to say, they're delicious.

Man, I love the holidays!

7 comments:

  1. Oh the way into any man (or grinches) heart is through his tummy! Those cookies look scrum-diddly-umptious!!
    Christmas, to me, is a magical time of the year. I do think it is way too commercial but it seems that most people are a little kinder, a little more giving and more forgiving around this time. At least this has been my experience. The season is what you make it & what you believe! I hope yours is wonderful.

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  2. I appreciate words about the feeling of Christmas....and I wish I could enjoy those scrumptious cookies!

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  3. SWMBO sure can cook...and bake.

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  4. Yes, she can, and my girth is testimony to that.

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  5. Those cookies look wonderful. I'd bake some but I might burn the house down ;)

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  6. They remind me of my childhood, and my children's childhood, when I baked those same- well they looked the same!- cookies for them. We all loved them.
    The Doll stories... don't get me started!

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