A Christmas tale

Naughty List or Nice List ?

Remember the Christmas magic of things like- sitting around the table together making popcorn chains to decorated the Christmas tree; The look on a child’s face when you plug in the Christmas lights; Catching Mum’s head turned long enough to snatch a chocolate from the tree. Those are the Christmas gifts that can’t be bought in shops and they are the ones you remember long after the electric train is gone.

One of my goals as a kid, was to stay up late and catch Santa Claus on Christmas eve. I don’t know why kids do this, maybe we think if we catch him- we’ll get all the presents he has left in his sack. I tried for years to catch that rascal, but never could. I always fell asleep and he’d slip right past all my traps. It didn’t matter how much string I used or how many pie pans I tied them to- he’d still get though without making a noise.

My favorite food for Christmas was those butter cookies cut out like a wreath. The only time we had any of those butter cookies was at Christmas time and thats what kind Mum wanted to leave out for Santa. I told her to leave Santa those burnt up chocolate chip that she always tried to make instead. But she wanted to leave him the good stuff. No matter, I ate up all Santa’s cookies while I was staying up late trying to catch him. The best Santa ever got at our house was a few crumbs and half a glass of milk.

When you get on that naughty list, its hard to get off- just ask my granny, she’s been on it for years. She would never admit that she tried to catch Santa Claus, but I think she took a garden hose out one year and iced up the roof. Santa fell off in the yard and dropped his sack. Granny got there first and wouldn’t give it back. Anyway, her Christmas tree had a whole lot of stuff with other people’s name crossed out and hers written in over top.

The other day I went to Santa’s web site to see if I was still on his naughty list? Yeah, I’m still on it. While I was there, I decided to check up on a few other people and find out which list they were on. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I did. And here is what I found out. (note, the names have been somewhat changed to protect the guilty.)

Papaw - Nice, but has been naughty at times. Has shown improvement with cleaning up his room. Still has a naughty tendency to leave his socks on the floor. With a little more effort, could be near top of "nice" list.

Granny - Nice at times, but needs to be good all year, not just around Christmas time. Overall, niceness outweighs naughtiness. Was good a whole week last month!

Be careful which list you get on. Its not Santa’s birthday we celebrate at Christmas and Santa didn’t go to the cross for you. That little baby born in a manger is Jesus, the son of the most high God!!! Jesus can get your name written down in the Book of Life, thats the most important list of all to be on. I didn’t know this for a long time, and I grew up in a neighborhood full of church members?

Written By Johnny Lee Hall Dec 1, 2001

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oooh thank you every one :O)

Just a small blog

I just want to thank everyone for their fantastic present I was bestowed with. Lots and lots of craft items along with loads of pretty card. All to be used when card making.

I will be undertaking a project soon; making a bible book card.

Sandie gave me the cover in the form of a deep chocolate leather look card, Sindie gave me this fantastic paper to make very fine tissue like pages that can hopefully be typed on.

I am not sure where she got it or what it is called and unfortunately have forgotten how to use it BUT no matter, my friend Jeanette has come to the rescue as she used to use it when making cards for the infants she used to teach.

I shall do a proper blog with some photos another day. I am very busy and not feeling the biz at the moment.

Tinax

Oh my goodness me

As you know I have a bad stomach, it just is very painful. Because of this after chatting for a while with Babs I tidied up and went to bed early (about 2am) I was very uncomfortable in bed and thought I could not sleep UNTIL both Dave and myself was woken with a jolt by the dogs barking wildly.

Dave got up to investigate and I snuggled into his spot until he told them off and came back to bed :O)

He did come back to the bedroom but only to say “Tiny get up the police want to speak to you and he disappeared! I thought I must be dreaming, it was 3.15am and the police wanted to talk to me! Whatever for?

Our bedroom door opens into the front room as does the front door the other side! I was very embarrassed to walk out of the bedroom in case they were in the front room, they were not. Our front door was wide open and there was a police man standing just behind the Nat screen, he had a torch and shone it into the front room and on my face. I switched the light on (although the room was well lit up with all the car head lights lol)

He asked me to step outside (thank goodness we live in Spain, although it was still very chilly) I did so and was horrified to see poor Dave surrounded by police, three police cars had been driven (at what looked like high speed in order to swerve them round and up the pavement facing out front door) Dave said there were at least three more parked the other side of out wall! And two more up the road. There was also an ambulance with flashing lights, and I kid you not at least ten policeman, about three others dressed all in yellow and the ambulance medic, all in our front garden!

There were three police all asking me “No problem? You no phone? You no scream” I said ‘no’ and they said can they step in, I said yes of course. Once inside they tried to speak to me, it was hard for them to try to explain in English but I gather someone phoned them and they were screaming and said come quick to No. 4. They gave this address.

At the same time the ambulance man were checking my arms and said again “No problem” making the sleeping jester I repeated I was fine, I was asleep. They then asked if anyone else was here, again I said No, they asked if they could check around, I said yes two policemen one behind the other opened the bedroom door, shone the torch and shouted something, at the same time two went upstairs, they shouted something and returned down. I had heard them opening the back door onto the sun roof.

Dave returned inside with a few policeman and they asked me if I was OK, I again said Fine thank you.

After apologising they said goodnight and got in there cars and drove away, the ambulance following.

I soo wanted to take photos but did not know how to explain it, I did click one off without the flash from the front room window just as they were leaving, you can just see three cars headlights shining on the pavement facing our house.

There were still lots of policemen in the garden but because I took this from the window left window they were not in view.

Well goodness only knows what it was all about, but needless to say it was very exciting after the first shock! I did pray for whoever was screaming and made that phone call. I hope the police found them.

Well Sandie you asked me to blog about what happens in Spain!!

have a go

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oooooohhh

Don't think I have downloaded this photo quite right Babs. It downloaded the same as with my other browser.

Do you like my mouse Jeanette brought me ? (ages ago for my Birthday)

Forgot to show it to you.

Tina x

We had a wonderful Church service on Sunday by Christingle Light

I forgot my camera so had to rely on someone sending me these photos over the e mail.

Gilda and Nila made some wonderful Christingles for us.

Our Parson and his wife was visiting family in Ireland so it was up to us! The good news was we had no sermon :O).

The artificial lights were put out and we had our service by candle light.

We had a visitor from Scandinavia, he played the guitar and sang Silent night, the first verse was in his own language, the second was Latin the third was German and then we all sang it through in English of course! No photo :O(

After singing several other carols we had visitors (a brother and sister) from Indonesia, they sang four songs and apologised that they were about to sing Silent night again in FOUR different languages again! Their own, English, Dutch, Malaysian. Again I have no photo.

The three singers were very good, especially the man who had such a rich voice, it was wonderful to hear that beautiful carol in six different languages as well as ours. They all had the same tune except the German one.

We were allowed to bring the Christingles home so I have copied them for our Spanish neighbours; this is what we gave them. I used Dates and chocolate and poor Dave's liquorice all-sorts as I did not have any other sweets :O(

Also I did them for our Christmas meal.

As usual our babies were allowed on this one occasion to eat their meal from the table, before we did I hasten to add!

Note their Little presents! At first they refuse to eat and look so innocent, once they realise it is OK there is no stopping them. Tiny was with us this year and she was not going to be left out, she would not sit to close to ours so I had to move Toff along a bit. Jeanette will be very surprised at Tiny, she is so scared and timid. She really loves it with us and the babies; she soon becomes one of the pack! She settles down immediately the front door is closed behind Jeanette. Just look at Toff licking her lips at the Trifle in the photo below, waiting for permission to eat it!.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day and enjoyed all your company.

Tina xx