Our Call to Regift

It is Christmas eve. Well, it's not evening yet, but let's ignore that for a moment. Colorfully wrapped presents repose beneath a shimmering tree. Go ahead. Take a picture of the momentary splendor. In a handful of hours, the paper will be strewn across the floor, several of the candy canes will have mysteriously disappeared, and the spell of the unknown will be dispersed. You may receive clothes, books, games, and maybe even that new CD you've been dieing to get your hands on. Some of these  may not be quite to your taste, and that's okay, right? You can always regift it next year, and doesn't your cousin even have a birthday next month?

For the last few weeks, we've been hearing sermons about Jesus being sent to us as a child so that He could die on the cross, the perfect lamb, to save us from our sins. It's the ultimate gift, a Savior who loves us without restraint. What do we do with a gift like this, a gift that is valuable beyond compare? Many of us accept it gratefully, place it on the mantle, and gaze at it fondly from time to time. Being a Christian would be far easier if that was all that is required of us. Neither are we only called to be His servants. Christ is a Christmas gift like no other. He is a gift we must pass on with jubilation. In our culture, we regift what we don't want and greedily cling to what catches our fancy, but instead, Abba would have us give our greatest gift to others. In doing so, we do not lose it; rather, regifting the love of Christ enriches our lives as Christians. Not to mention, it's the best gift you can pass along, even if it isn't immediately received from your friend, family member, or acquaintance.

In this holiday season, we are called regift Christ, to share his limitless love with others.

I know this post isn't very long, but it's something I've been wanting to post since the fourteenth. Maybe it's something one of you needs this season, maybe not. Regardless, have a safe and merry Christmas. You are loved beyond comprehension and compare.

The Unexpected Gift

In the early morning,
before the sunrise,
little padded feet
approach the Christmas tree.
They are not the child's;
she rests above.
They are not Santa's,
for he has come and gone.
These belong
to a Christmas kitten,
covered in soft,
tabby fur.

She stalks the stocking
of the little girl.
She thought she saw it move.
Surely,
it moved.

The stocking falls over,
toppled by one quick whap.
Candy falls out,
but doesn't skitter.
It is the mane
of a little
unicorn
that draws the attention
of a pair
of gold green eyes.

Oh, alas.
The unicorn had no chance.
Pounced upon,
kicked,
and licked.
All
savagely.

A light clicks on,
and a gasp breaks free.
Little Tina on the landing.
Her unicorn badly mauled.
She doesn't cry.
She doesn't scream.

She laughs,
and that
by far
is her favorite gift
that night.

Thanksgiving Again

It snowed today. I woke up to see huge, fat flakes meandering their way down. This lasted for two or three hours before it promptly melted. No winter wonderland for exploring just yet.

In a few hours, it will be Thanksgiving. There aren't really many songs for this holiday, except the few designed for elementary students. Why? Because it's hard to sell products on a day when we are to be thankful for what we have. Why else does Christmas music invade our homes earlier and earlier? Anyway, it has been a while since my last list. I am a blessed child of God, and I will not turn a blind eye to the blessings he bestows upon me.

1. Amazing parents who have raised me in Christ's ways and who love me dearly
2. Being near my big sister after a month of her absence
3. Being able to talk to my sister with nothing held back, just like when we were little, despite the little time we are able to spend together these days
4. Staying up late with my sister last night
5. My close friend Christian and his amazing taste in music
6. The music Christian gave me on a flash drive that made my day last week
7. My Lizzy kitten (Lil-Bit) who curls up with me every night, sometimes even under the covers
8. My church family
9. Being told by one of my church members that when she looks at me, she sees my great grandma (who was an extraordinary christian woman)
10. Big brothers who treat me like their own blood
11. My visit with Ace and Kirito yesterday
12. The christian webcomic From Nothing
13. Hugs
14. Music
15. Books
16. Naps
17. Art
18. Chocolate
19. More chocolate

Tomorrow, I will visit with family and celebrate the many, many blessings my Lord has showered on me and mine, but in the following days, I won't forget my blessings, and I will continue to try my best to be a blessing to others and show them the love of the King through me.

Happy Thanksgiving, and have safe travels.

Valentine's Day 2014

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are the recipient of many hugs and much chocolate. In my life are many prominent couples: my grandparents, my mom and dad, my brother Ace and his fiancee, and my youngest brother and his girlfriend. These couples are horribly sweet, and I love them very much.

That being said, there are some pretty awesome singles in my life too: my three oldest brothers (as far as I know), my wonderful older sister, and some of my close friends. Some of those said friends are rather proud of being single and celebrate the fourteenth of February as Singles Awareness Day. I don't quite think that the word used should be awareness though. Celebration, that works better. Awareness is most often used for diseases. It makes it sound like we're going to die unless we get boyfriends (or girlfriends as the case may be). Please, enough with the melodrama. Being single is actually pretty awesome when it's all said and done.

• All the chocolate you buy can go to you (and deserving friends, but they don't have to know that you have chocolate, and what they don't know won't hurt them).

• So much time is freed up when you don't have to be in contact over text or social media all the time, let alone actually being with someone.

• You don't have to shave (to be quite frank that does apply to both genders).

• Money spent on gifts and dates can be spent another way, say books, video games, car or truck, or even chocolate. (There's no going wrong with chocolate.)

• You don't have to check with the boyfriend before you schedule something. It's really all about spontaneity.

• You can drop off of the grid of communication for a full week and no one would make a fuss. 

• Bacon.

• You can be as geeky or crazy as you want. No one will restrain you.

• There are no friends of the boyfriend that you really dislike that you have to put up with, when there is no boyfriend.

I thoroughly enjoy being single, but I won't bash couples. They have the gift of one another. Please don't complain about them being happy together. That doesn't speak well of you, even if you're otherwise awesome. 

So, happy Valentine's Day, dear couples. Enjoy each other. In your loved one you have a constant comfort and (hopefully) entertainment.

Happy Singles Celebration, dear singles. Don't worry about being a third wheel. Be a unicycle! Those are really cool and take a lot of talent.

Much love,
Kara
 

Christmas Lights

There's something about Christmas lights that acts as a cup of hot chocolate to my heart. Their dancing brightness in the night is laughter released to be seen rather than heard.

The rides home from relatives' homes were, to my young imagination, strolls through art galleries. Here and there were houses that seemed to be of gingerbread: lights bordering windows, doors, and the edges and corners of the roofs like carefully placed gumdrops. Occasionally the choice and placement of lights created the illusion of glowing icicles. My favorite displays were when I could see the tree lit up inside. These were the houses that seemed the most real, as if the absence of a tree whispered that it was a dream and not a thing of substance.

As is our tradition, my sister and I set up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. Life moved on and we returned to work for a few weeks more. Every morning I woke up and dressed before the sun lifted her sleepy head and dared to open her shining eyes. I curled up in the armchair with a warm cup of tea in my hands and absorbed the sight of the tree illuminating the darkened room. It made a bubble around me, a little world all my own. It was small, but still an early morning sanctuary.

I know it's a few days late, but Merry Christmas.

Fairy Tale Fathers

There are a lot of fathers in fairy tales. Most die pretty quickly, or their wives die, and they don't remarry very well; sometimes they'd remarry poorly and then die. Of the commonly known stories the best father I can think of is Hansel's and Grettel's. Taking into account that it is a fairy tale, one really can't hold him accountable for marrying a monster the second time around, but despite this common occurrence, he still stands out. He doesn't die or completely submit to his new wife's will. While he did eventually give in to her nagging, he resisted it for as long as he could, which is more than we're told the other fathers ever did, and when his children came home he embraced them with joyful tears. Depending on the version, he either kicked his spouse out or she died for unspecified reasons before the children returned, which I find a little suspicious, but either way, nothing would convince him to leave his darling children ever again. I assume that includes any charges of murder, vandalism, or theft that were never brought against the two little delinquents (in some versions they returned home with riches from the witch's house that ensured their financial security after that).

Here's a fairy tale, one that may be more true than you might believe it to be.

Once, not so terribly long ago, a youth fell in love with a beautiful young woman. He wasn't a prince, and she wasn't a princess. Neither one was the child of a poor woodsman or tailor, but the youth still saw her for the clever beauty that she was, and still is. He tirelessly wooed her, and one day they were wed. They lived happily for a few years and had a child, which did not dim their joy in the least. She was a golden haired little princess that was mostly quiet and observant. Not long after their daughter reached three years of age, they had her sister, who was a little bit louder to be perfectly frank. To this day the youth lives happily with his family. He works hard to support and feed them, and they love him as he loves them.

Happy Fathers' Day. I love you Dad.

Siblings' Day 2013

Tada!

It's a blog post! In for-warning, the writing may not be like most of my posts. I normally make a point of not listening to music while I write. It messes with the rthym and emotion of my words. However, my brother, Ace, is listening to his music audibly, and if I must have slightly off writing, I'd rather have it because of my music. We have different tastes. While he likes much of my music, I don't really like a fair amount of his. It's the same way with my sister. I love all her music, but she doesn't like Owl City or Tenth Avenue North. While we all have our individual tastes, we still claim each other for whatever reason. Well, in my sister's case, we don't have a choice, but I think that if we did I'd still like her. What her choice would be is debateable.

Today is Siblings' Day, so I figured I would write about my sister. I might write about my brothers in following years. Ace would certainly be an interesting entry, but on to my sister. It's hard to think of what story to tell. When she possibly saved my life? When she almost killed me? I don't think a story is right for now.

She was my example growing up. I aspired to be as smart and beautiful as her. I'm sure she hated that, even though she did use it to her advantage since I could get away with more things than she could. She's three years older than me, and I bawled my eyes out once she was out of sight on the road to college. In a sense, she's a part of me. The reasonable part that has a few odd but much loved quirks.

So happy Siblings' Day, big sister. I love you, and your cat misses you a lot.

Readers other than my sister: Go. Go give a hug to your brother or sister. Hold him, her, or both close and apologize for that argument last week. If you don't have a sibling, hug a pet or your parents, your kids, your spouse, or even yourself, if you live totally alone, because time forces us all apart in one way or another, but we'll all meet again at some point.

Take care,
Kara

Christmas Lights and Singing Shepherds

It appears that it is the 24th of December, unless the calendars all are lieing, but that is highly unlikely. It's cold. While there is no snow due to an appalling lack of precipitation, the cold persists. This time of year does have its perks though. Driving down almost any road, a person is bound to come across at least one home strung with lights. It's things like that that pull joy through me. Something as simple as lights in a dark night can pull me from whatever hole I've been in.

It's hard to write about Christmas, how strongly it lives within us even out of the season, so I'm just going to tell you a story instead. As a warning it isn't particularly funny or long, it's just a small anecdote.

My sister and I played dolls often. We loved making up stories. One year we decided to do a Christmas pageant with our dolls. We were not deterred by lack of an audience. My sister's favorite dolls were Mary and Joseph. My dolls were the innkeeper and his wife. It went fairly predictably, until we brought out the shepherds. Here, we had taken a few creative liberties. It began with a song.

"We are the hillbilly shepherds and we have two dozen sheep."
"And one goat!"
"And we feed the goat laundreeeee."

After the shepherds finished singing, their mother called them in for dinner, which was inevitably shepherd's pie.

The rest was perfectly normal until the two wise men came. The third one was sick and couldn't make it.

The Saga of the Christmas Tree (Part 1)

When I was young, my mother took me with her to buy a new Christmas tree. What happened to the last one; your guess is as good as mine. Maybe mice got in it, maybe spiders, maybe the lights were dead, or maybe it just wouldn’t reassemble properly anymore. Whatever the reason was, we needed a new one. My sister and father did not accompany us to Wal-Mart that day.

I wandered along beside the cart as we rolled into the Christmas section. There at the beginning of a shelf was a display tree. It was dark green with lights scattered through it. My little feet stalled in their path, until my mother dragged me along into the tree aisle. There she compared sizes, prices, and with lights already strung in or not, and I did my best not to be bored out of my young mind. Finally, my mother pulled a large box off of the shelf. It didn’t fit entirely in the cart, but enough of it did that it wasn’t impractical. Mom was fairly happy with it as it was on sale. The box had been opened and resealed.

“It was probably a display tree,” she commented to me as we meandered our way towards the checkout. She didn’t offer any explanation as to why it wasn’t anymore.

Days, maybe weeks later, my older sister and I sat before the tree with our Barbies in pre-Christmas joy. Well, at least until I wacked the back of my head on a tree branch. In pain, I hurried to my mother for comfort. She was at her computer as always.

“Do you remember when we got that tree?”

I nodded diligently.

“Well, it was on sale, and it used to be a display tree, but they had to take it down because it was eating children, so you need to be more careful around it, okay?”

I nodded again.

Not long after, she wrote of this very incident, concluding it with “I love kids. (They taste wonderful!)”.

The Plague

One Friday, the fourth in February of my freshman year in high school, my mother, sister, and I swung by the local Dollar General and picked up some needed items. Normally we also picked up something to snack on, this was no exception. My treat was a bag of Pixy Stixs. I loved them, and still do. The plan was not to eat the whole bag. When I got home, I sorted them by color and ate the whole bag. So much for the plan. Seconds after I finished the last one, I was assaulted by a massive headache. It was excruciating. So much so, that it actually hurt to move my eyes. I don't know how, but I managed to fake my way through the evening, while not giving the impression to my family that my brain was about to explode. I attributed it to the Pixy Stixs and went to bed.

The next day, I found a blister of some kind on the back of my left shoulder. My mom looked at it and couldn't think of anything strange about it, just that we might want to watch it. I promptly forgot about blister until Sunday, after my shower, when I discovered another. They itched a little now. I walked out of the bathroom, wrapped in my fuzzy robe, to ask my mother about itchy blisters. We looked it up and learned about a certain illness that, while red spots are more famous, can have blisters instead. Chicken Pox. My mom had the school nurse take a look at me before classes started, Monday. The nurse was skeptical, but did confirm, after inspection, what had been suspected. I did not attend classes that day, or any other that week.

My memory of that time is fairly fuzzy. I remember walking around the house crying from the pain, my grandmother bringing movies and watching them with me, and thinking over and over that I would wish my experience on no one. Never was I so happy to return to school. Despite missing a week of lessons, I managed to maintain my A B average. I had a fair amount of scabs, some of which I remember pulling out of my hair. Trust me, the insides of your knees, where your collar rubs your skin around your neck, those blisters were no fun at all.

When we suspected it least, the plague struck again. My sister was far from pleased. I once turned on my phone after classes and received a text message from her. It detailed that I should come home soon because she was lonely and cats don't speak English. I felt awful.

Chicken Pox takes ten days to show symptoms. Using this knowledge, we learned that my sister contracted it the last day I was contagious, and I got it on a Tuesday. According to my journal from that time, it was a snow day. Mom says we had gone to Wal-Mart, but I have no definite proof or anything to disprove that statement.

As Thanksgiving approaches this year, I thank my father, God, for the well being of my family, friends, and those I do not know.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

So. Here it is. The month of novel writing. I've actually never participated. Well, I might have for a day, but I'm a bit attention deficit when it comes to writing. I set out to write a book and I end up getting distracted by characters newly born, ideas that wouldn't work in the world I'm writing in, old stories that are calling for revisions... That's why I tend to stick with short stories and poetry. This year I'm hitting it again. I'm going to try to write a book, again.

I started in fifth grade, but the story progressed too fast. There was very little character development, and let's face it, at fifth grade my spelling and grammar were awful, let alone my writing style. I had to shut it down. I buried The Last Gift Seer and have only revisited it to bring back happy memories, not to write or improve it. Sixth grade through eighth, I improved, but I kept starting over. I never reached chapter two. I said goodbye to my dragon story, Wingbeat.

I'll see how it goes this time around. It gives me a reason to procrastinate on a blog post I've been meaning to write about something (I won't spoil it for you, just in case I do finish it.), something to do instead of scanning my shelves for something to read that matches my mood, and frankly I'd rather do this than "No Shave November" (On that front, let's just conclude that my big brother, Ace, is excited for an excuse to attempt a beard.*).

I won't be alone. Another blogger, Sarah Elisabeth Newman, is participating in NaNoWriMo. She's actually why I decided to. Sarah's been working on her book for a while, and I admire that, especially considering my track record. The way I see it, if I keep in mind that she's working on it, it'll help me stay focused.

So, now that you've read this slightly boring post, I have a challenge for you.

Join us.

*Note: My brothers list grows, since they're all honorary. Ace is currently the youngest of my four main brothers.

Happy Late Fourth (2012)

Dear Reader,

Hello. It seems that every other day there is a story on the news about a fire caused by fireworks. That's the Americans. We'll set off fireworks even if the grass is so dry it just goes up in a puff of smoke. Well, individuals will. A lot of towns actually cancelled their firework displays in order to prevent an accidental fire. My family had a small get together in one place that did not cancel. We ate dinner and caught a show. It was ten p.m. when we came out, and over the buildings we could see flashes of color. I stared out the window on the way home. All around us fireworks spurted to the stars. It was beautiful. The word magic fits perfectly. It wasn't just magic on the way back. On the drive in, there were hills covered in dark green trees. Sometimes there were fields between the hills and sometimes halfway down a hill another abruptly started, as if they were crowding each other. It's easy to see them as the mountains they once were.

My Fourth of July was filled with beauty, even if it was too hot to stay out very long when the sun was still up. I know that not all of my readers are in America, but the majority is. I hope all of you had a happy day on the fourth regardless of if it was a holiday for you or not.

Kara

A Late Update On Goings On

Technically this post is not late. We are currently in a time referred to as the Holidays. Holidays. Plural. Thanksgiving is a part of that. I made deviled eggs with my mother, before visiting my grandparents, that were very tasty. The Sunday after Thanksgiving I made deviled eggs entirely on my own. They did not turn out as planned. There was too much vinegar. My father didn't mind. Black Friday was spent at home with my brother, avoiding the Black (Friday) Plague.

We have two new additions in our household collection of felines. A black male kitten named Insta-Purr and a calico female kitten called Lil-Bit. The Lady of Shed-Lots is not pleased with the kittens and hisses anytime an encounter occurs.

A Blog Post About Bloging That Includes A Short Story About A Werewolf

This is me, being a terrible person. I feel really really guilty that I haven't posted since September 12th, and I have had people view this blog fairly regularly. Well, unless of course the "stats" that Blogger is providing me with aren't mine... if that is the case, I feel really sorry for whoever would end up with my "stats". Seriously though, for those of you that do read my writing, I appreciate it. To look at the "stats" and see that almost everyday one or two people have looked at my blog makes me incredibly happy. It's really easy to get depressed when I see that people haven't commented, but at least I know you're there even if you are invisible. I am not someone who comments on other blogs either, but just this once, even if you decide to never again read my blog, comment. Writers NEED to be told how we are doing. If I have terrible grammar or use the wrong "there" (or "their" or "they're") tell me. It helps out a lot. If I'm doing well tell me. Sometimes I need a little encouragement.

Now, to today's true purpose. Tomorrow is Halloween. Almost everyone has dressed up, or told a scary story around this time of year. Today's goal for me is to tell you a possibly scary story. What should it be about? Radio active kittens? Street prowling grannies that beat innocent trick-or-treating children up in allies with big purses? Spiders that can control people's minds? Narcoleptic zombies? None of those. At least not this time. Maybe next year. This year is the year of the pyromaniac 18 year old werewolf named Steve, that happens to be germaphobic when in his wolf state. He lives in 21st century London, England. It may not turn out to be scary, but we'll see where it takes us.


Steve glanced out his window. The moon would soon rise over the tall buildings, living in a tall city helped keep the wolf a bay a little longer. He flipped his lighter open, closed, open, closed, open, closed. A pointed pain began to eat at his side. It was as if a small sharp toothed animal were trying to eat its way out. He shook his head, tossing dark curls a little to the side. Groaning, Steve stood up and walked into the cellar and locked the door. The only way out now was the slightly large doggy door that lead outside. He had learned from experience that letting the wolf into his house was not a good idea. It only resulted in torn up furniture and missing house shoes. The wolf preferred to be outside where the streets were (some of them) unexplored and the meat was fresh. Speaking of the wolf, the change finished rather quickly once Steve let himself go limp on the floor. I will not describe it, as the change churns the stomach of even the most experienced individual. The wolf scrambled to its feet and shook its glossy black fur.

The wolf was a dignified member of The Committee of the Werewolves of London (C.W.L.). He liked to be called Unferth. The only thing that he had in common with Steve was black fur, in Steve's case hair, and a love of fire (the human part of any wolf was completely unaware of the C.W.L.). He also liked long walks in the park and quiet midnights with a fresh bone to gnaw upon.

Unferth padded over to the bowl of Germ-Ex that Steve had thoughtfully placed near the doggy door and dipped his paws in. Not only is fire beautiful, but it also cleanses of germs even if only temporarily, Unferth thought to himself. What he wanted was to stay inside, away from germs, but Steve had become very careful to lock the door, so indoors was not an option. Bravely he pushed through the doggy door into the germ filled place that is London.

Approximately eight hours later half of London was on fire, multiple people had been ripped to shreds, all the cats that had been outside were up trees, and it was to be blamed on the C.W.L., well most of it was. The fire was completely Unferth's fault.

THE END

Deviled Eggs And Cupcakes

Happy Fourth of July!!!!! I personally count the fourth as one of my top holidays. It's right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving, just above my birthday. This is because the Fourth is on of the few times when my mother makes deviled eggs. I've done the math (what little there is to do) and she only makes them twice a year. For someone who is a great fan of her deviled eggs, this small but true fact is pure torture. This year she also made cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes, those glorious little cakes shaped like cups!

My town celebrated the fourth last night. My family chose to celebrate on the same day. We converged to devour the food that our households had contributed to. For some odd reason, I have a reputation involving the disappearances of several deviled eggs. I have no idea why. This year however, I decided to help my mother in the preparation of these eggs of deliciousness.

Around noon yesterday, my mother announced that she was going to take a nap and would prepare the deviled eggs when she woke up. Seeing as the eggs had already been boiled and I had nothing to do, she informed me that I was to shell the eggs while she napped. My mother, being the kindly woman she is, showed me how to shell the eggs in case I had forgotten. She liberated a few from the confines of their shells and retired to her room.

I eagerly cracked the shell of one egg until it was covered with little lines, and began to tear the shell away. Unfortunately, a great deal of egg white peeled off too, so that, when I had finished, the egg was considerably smaller than and not as smooth as the eggs my mother had peeled. Valiantly, I continued on with my work. I finally began to shell the eggs rather well, so well in fact that I decided to do it with my eyes closed. The first blindly shelled egg seemed to have survived, pleased, I began the next one. When I had finished that egg, I looked down in dismay. Due to my longish fingernails and my lack of attention, I had exposed the yolk. I placed the egg with the others, horrified at what I had done to its innocent white protective layer. The rest of the eggs that I shelled survived with considerably less trauma.

My mother slept on while I arranged all 24 eggs on a tea towel to dry. I was going to do a 4x8 rectangle, but I decided to sort the injured from the perfectly shelled. I ended up with two 3x4 rectangles. Obviously, my technique needs work. I retired to my father's arm chair and read until the time my mother had informed me to wake her.

I slipped through her doorway and heard a faint snore. I smiled. She wasn't even under her covers. Instead, she had pulled an extra blanket from the foot of the bed over her. I looked at her for a moment, at her hair strewn across the pillow, and the rise and fall of the blanket covering her while she breathed.

"Mom." The words echoed around me so soon after I had uttered them. I was filled with memories of sneaking downstairs late at night and going to her room. The single word, "Mommy," would wake her instantly and she would open up the covers for me to climb in with her, the warm blankets closing around me, protecting me from the vicious shadows.

These days, as she no longer needs to fend off the monsters of nightmares, it takes a little more than a single word, quietly spoken to rouse her. I walked over and sat down on the bed next to her. The shift in weight on the bed woke her and she opened her eyes and looked at me. I informed her of the time and she nodded her head wisely. I left her to finish waking completely.

The back door was soon opened and closed to allow me to escape the confines of the house. I sat on the stairs of the porch. The cats, Sir. Shed-A-Lot and The Lady of Shed-Lots, both sauntered up to me and demanded attention. I happily did as ordered. By the time I thought Mom had gone to the kitchen, I was wondering if you can get fur burn. It is much like a rug burn, only one gets it from petting a cat or other furry pet for long periods of time.

I returned to the kitchen in time to see my mom put something in the blender. I looked at the eggs. She gently reminded me of the procedures (last time I made deviled eggs I was eight or nine) and showed me which knife she thought was appropriate. We merrily went about our work. Mom working with the cupcakes and me cutting the eggs in half and dropping the round yolk into a largish bowl. Two halves were too badly damaged to make suitable deviled eggs and had to be sacrificed to the monster that had cut them in half in the first place.

We finally came to the part where my mother and I made the center stuff. One deviled egg split and we hurriedly thrust it into the hands of my father, who was innocently passing by.

"Eat it fast!" My mother cried.

"Whoa!" My father had taken the egg and finally registered that the filling was spilling into his hands. The whole egg disappeared into his mouth quite quickly.

The rest of the evening went by rather uneventfully. We met the rest of the family (that could come) at the normal spot. There were a few stories told, including the time my sister made lemon bars that tasted like chicken, and we watched a movie before heading home.

That brings us to this morning. I woke up and decided that I didn't want to sleep anymore for the night. Little kids aren't the only ones with nightmares. It was 6:21. I usually wake up several hours later during the summer, but I didn't want to risk having anymore bad dreams. I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. My breakfast consisted of a glass of chocolate milk and three deviled eggs. I curled up in the recliner and read a book after consuming the most important meal of the day.

My sister came by, gave me a curious glance, and passed on. My father didn't even fully notice me until the third time he passed. When my mother came by for the second time I sweetly informed her that I had eaten breakfast and inquired how long she thought my father would stay in his room with the door closed. My mother is a wise woman and knows me well. She asked what I wanted to do that I didn't want him to know about. I said one word, "Cupcakes?" and my mother nodded, informed me that I could have one and that if my father came out of his room I could go hide in her room and that was it. She went to her lair and I choose a cupcake.

No sooner had I sat down, then my father's door opened and he emerged. I leapt to my feet, held the cupcake behind me, and giggled. I do not know why I giggled, as I had not even put my nose close to smell the icing yet. My father went into the bathroom. I wasted no time in dashing to my mother's room. I perched upon her bed and separated the wrapper and cupcake with surgical precision. Once the cupcake was no more, I returned to the livingroom where I found a traitorous act in the making.

My sister was talking with my father and telling him that I had gone to Mom's room with the cupcake and that I had my mother's permission. I hurried to my mother and told her that my sister had sold us out. Mom and I went upstairs to confront the sister. I confronted from behind the mother as older sisters are something to be mortified of. We relaxed after a moment and and my mother reminded me that I couldn't have another cupcake until after lunch. I couldn't help it.

"I don't need another one. I'm sweet enough already."

After my mother and sister finished laughing, my mother informed me that I got that from my father.

Giving Thanks and Christmas Cheer

     Thanksgiving is usually spent at my grandmother's house (Dad's side) and this year was the same. There I saw one of my favorite cousins. We spent most of the time talking about Girl Genius and teaching the younger ones about being minions. When I got home I made a list of what I am thankful for this year. These are, of course, not in order of importance.

1. Grandparents
2. Cousins (even the little ones)
3. Uncles
4. Aunts
5. My Sister
6. My Brothers
7. Mom
8. Dad
9. Deviled Eggs
10. Green Beans
11. Carbonated Sugar Water
12. Girl Genius
13. Books
14. My Boyfriend
15. My Friends
16. The Felines
17. Snow
18. Warmth
19. Meat
20. Chocolate Cake
21. Chocolate Pie

    Black Friday the older of my two brothers came to help us with the tree. We erected it without any difficulty and set about decorating it. As always the angels were placed near the top. On the very top was placed the star. Our brother did that part. We arranged the nativity scene at the base and turned on the little lights. It was beautiful.
     After the tree was done we sat and watched the first half of The Hogfather. After that I took a nap for about ten minutes. I woke up and slid out from under my covers. I was just in time to greet my other brother as he came through the door. After that we watched Fifth Element and Sixth Sense. The younger brother left just before the scary parts started. When the older one left as well I talked with my parents then went to bed. The next day I wrapped Christmas presents. All in all, it has been a busy week, and there is still more to come.