Merry Christmas

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As much as I try, I cannot top this.

From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun, written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

“Dear Editor–I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street

 

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Kandy’s Korner

A Cowgirl’s Christmas

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It was getting near Christmas out on the range, but our little cowgirl was feeling quite strange.

With presents to wrap, and so much to do, our little cowgirl was feeling quite blue.

She was just sitting out there in her yard,  won’drin’ why Christmas ain’t like Christmas cards.

No holly, no ivy, no hung mistletoe, not egg-nog nor cocoa, nor men made of snow.

No stocking to hang for a holiday show, for Santa to fill while the fireplace glows.

“How will Santa find me, will he even know? ‘Cause down here in Texas it just isn’t so.”

“I’ve not made a snowball, not even once. Never ice skated, never mulled punch.”

“I’ve never, ever, even seen a snow man; all that I got is just cactus and sand.”

Then all of a sudden she heard a sound, and what did she see when she turned around?

Out from behind the old mesquite tree,  stepped the most curious cowboy that she ever did see.

A two-gallon hat on a small pointy head, his buckskins and britches all green and red.

About two foot six, a curious fellow; his boots, they were green, his hair kind of yellow.

‘That’s sorta odd’, she thought to herself; She knew right away, it must be an elf.

He moseyed right up to our cowgirl and spoke; “I’ve been sent by Santa, just so you know,”

“We tallied our totals, and figured out this, your name is on top of the Good Cowgirl List.”

“We’ve been watching all year, we’re quite sure of this. So Santa sent me to give you a wish.”

“All cowgirls are special, and you’re the best one, so ask for a wish, and that wish will be done.”

Our little cowgirl thought for a spell, she had to sit down, the elf sat as well.

“A wish of all wishes, if one could come true, what would I wish for, what should I do?”

“Food for the hungry, or wealth for the poor, love for the lonely, but there’s so much more.”

“For the homeless a wish for a roof and a floor. Or Real Peace on Earth, a wish to end war”

The elf he just sat there, shaking his head. He turned to our cowgirl, looking sad as he said;

“Those kind of presents can’t be made by an elf. Man made that mess, he must clean it himself.”

“While all of those wishes are noble and true, there are some things even elves cannot do.”

“How ‘bout a pony? Will a new dolly do? Surely there’s something you want just for you.”

She thought and she thought, and she thought one more time. ”All that I want is already mine.”

“A family that loves me, a horse strong and bold, and I’m here in Texas, that’s better than gold.”

The silly old elf stood there stroking his beard, “Most perplexin’ puzzle that I ever heard.”

“This will not do, no not do at all, there was never a child that needs no wish at all.”

He paced and he stumbled, he muttered and mumbled and walked back and forth on the floor.

He fussed and he fretted, he stewed and he sweated, he thunk ‘til he could think no more.

All of a sudden he hollered “Yahoo; I know exactly what I need to do.”

He jumped on his horse, and took to the sky, ‘cause as you know elf horses fly.

He whooped and hollered as he flew through the night;

“Merry Christmas Cowgirl, It’s your special night.”

She tried to see, to watch the elf go,

When out of nowhere, it started to snow.

Now when they look back on the blizzard that year, they call it spooky, it fills them with fear.

The biggest snow storm that ever had fell on the whole state of Texas, they remember it well.

But what made the papers from here to Long Branch, that snow only fell on one cowgirl’s ranch.

One cowgirl got her own Christmas Dream, and the biggest snowman that they’d ever seen.

Merry Christmas Cowgirl

Love as always

Uncle Mike

©2011 Kandy’s Korner

 

Happy Thanksgiving

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Dear Miss Jenna,

Just wishing you a happy Thanksgiving. I know that a Real Cowgirl is thankful all year long, it’s even one of the cowgirl rules after all, isn’t it; A Cowgirl Is Thankful. But still it’s nice to have a day to be with family, great food and football.  It seems things just taste better on Thanksgiving.

Of all the things I thankful for, I’m very grateful for having a little cowgirl to tell stories to. I’m thankful I get to eat turkey today, and that our Cowboys will be feasting on Dolphins. Your dad might not agree with us, but you must be strong as you cheer on OUR Cowboys today. Hopefully our Cowboys will make them old Dolphins look like Turkeys today. .Then you just tell your Dad; “There’s always next year”. He’ll understand. Your Dad is a pretty cool guy.

Then when the game is over,  and your tummy is full of turkey and pie, a cowgirl takes a few minutes to remember all the things a cowgirl has to be grateful for. All cowgirls know this.

As always Miss Jenna, keep Texas in your heart until your feet are in Texas again.

Love as always, and Happy Thanksgiving

Uncle Mike and Aunt Sassy

Cowgirl’s Kindergarten; Geography

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Dear Miss Jenna,

Today in Cowgirl Kindergarten we are studying Geography. Now, most rascals, and even some city-slickers will try to tell you Geography is too hard for kindergarten learning. They just don’t know our kindergarten cowgirls, do they Miss Jenna? Geography is just knowing where you are and where you want to go. Knowing that is as simple as learning directions and places, every cowgirl knows this.

The first part of learning Geography is knowing where you are. For that you just have to learn two places; Here and Yonder.

Here is where you are, at what ever place your feet happen to be. Anywhere a cowgirl finds herself to be, she can stand there, point to herself and say “I am Here.”

Everywhere else is Yonder. If it ain’t Here it’s Yonder. How big Here is depends a whole lot on how far away Yonder is. Let’s say you’re Here reading this on the computer, and your Mom is off yonder in the kitchen making you a cookie. Well, that’s only a few feet away, so Here is your desk, and yonder is only another room away. That makes Here pretty small. Now, suppose that cowgirl says, I’m Here on Earth, and the stars are way up yonder. Well, this time Here is as big as the whole planet, because the stars are pretty far off yonder. That’s what a Kindergarten Cowgirl needs to know about places.

The next part of knowing geography is knowing where you’re going. That’s almost as easy. Well, it’s easy for cowgirls, not so easy for a rascal. To know where you’re going, you only need to know four directions; Up, Down, Back and Out. The best way to learn which way is which is to turn your feet towards the North Pole, and try to see Santa’s house. You are now facing Up. Back is to your right; Out is to your left, and Down is where your backside is. See I told you it was simple. Now if  we take those directions and place them on a map of the good ol’ USA, you will get an idea of how they work.

If we take that same map, and mark up the two most important places on it, it looks like this;

Texas is important, because, well it’s Texas. That little Blue dot you see is Connecticut. Connecticut is important because that’s where Jenna is. If I were to talk to a cowboy here, and he asks me “Where is Miss Jenna?”, I would tell him, “She’s Up Yonder in Connecticut.” And when someone in Connecticut asks you, “Where is your Old Uncle Mike?”, you would say “He’s Down Yonder in Texas.” See, it is simple, isn’t it. Well, like I said, it’s easy for a cowgirl, city folk seem to have a hard time with it. As you learn your directions and places better, you will put the directions together  to give a more accurate answer, such as Miss Jenna is ‘Back Up Yonder in Connecticut’,or your Old Uncle Mike is ‘Out Down Yonder in Texas.’

As you get farther into your book learning you will learn a lot of things about a lot of places, all over the whole world. These are important learnings, the more you know about other places the more you’ll know if you want to go there. The more you know, the more places you’ll go, every cowgirl knows that, don’t they Miss Jenna? But for now, this is all the Geography a Kindergarten Cowgirl needs to know.

As always Miss Jenna, keep Texas in your heart until your feet can be down yonder in Texas.

Love as always, Uncle Mike

 

Fairy Rings and Spider Webs

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Dear Miss Jenna,

I was out and about in the gardens the other day, and thought I’d share a picture of what I found.

It looks like we got the missing rain back to Texas just in time. We’ve been getting enough rain on the gardens that the trees, flowers and fairies can get things ready for winter. Here is a picture of one of the fairy rings I have found so far, and any expert fairy hunter knows when you start to find the fairy rings, the fairies can’t be very far away. When they leave rings around that are this large, they’re working on something big. They’ll be leaving for the winter soon, the butterflies are all ready gone, and the birds have starting to fly south. The fairies are always the last to go. Only the pixies stay behind, and we sure don’t want to catch one of those, do we Miss Jenna? We know what kind of tricksters those pixies are.

I also found Billie-Bob’s granddaughter. I thought Becky-Lou would be a good name for it.

They had all moved down to the lake during the drought, but this one came back to help get the gardens ready for winter.

Since it was too dry for a proper fairy hunt this year, I wasn’t able to catch one this year, again. Being as hot and dry as it was, I didn’t try too hard anyway. Being an expert fairy hunter, I’ve learned it’s only when you have a child along to lead the way that you can have a proper fairy hunt anyway. Children seem to have a way of sniffing out fairies, they always know the best places to look.  Maybe next year when you can go hunting with me will be the year we finally catch one. I hope so, I been chasing them a long time.

Love as always

Uncle Mike