A repeat of something I wrote two years ago. This year we have two of our grandchildren with us for the big holiday. I got some comments on the remembrance, so I thought I would repeat it. I hope you enjoy it.



I wish to make a confession. A confession designed to be read by grandchildren I have and those yet to be born who will not know me other than the grandpa who lives in Ohio.

I would like them at least to know that I too was a child once and the excitement of this season now upon us was almost too much for me to bear. I was an only child, I had no brothers or sisters. I guess my mother decided after having me that she could do no better or, and this is more likely, she said, Oh no I'll have no part in bringing another one like him into the world.

I liked it. If I ever thought about it, it didn't take me long to decide that I was absolutely happy being an only. The one thing it allowed me to do was let my imagination soar free. With a brother or sister I would have been criticized for being stupid, or a dreamer.

So I could let my imagination fly, and around Christmas time, I sure did. I loved the holidays from Thanksgiving through Christmas. I would get so excited on Thanksgiving that for years I would get sick on the big eating holiday. But I quickly recovered and started carefully preparing my gift list for Santa Claus. Advantage for the only child. Unless you asked for something really dumb, like a real airplane, or a horse, you get the idea, I had a pretty good chance of hitting the jackpot.

Now here we get into some sticky territory. I was a true believer when it came to the legend of Santa Claus. But just in case I had gotten some faulty information I tried to cut my losses and would tell my mom what I had asked Santa for.

Now I am going to tell you a secret. A secret that only Grandma Hazel knows. On a Christmas eve night, I was trying very hard to fall asleep so the morning would arrive, and I could get to the serious business of gift receiving. Kids at the age I was had not yet learned that the idea of the season was to foster the exchange of gifts which originated with the Magi's bringing gifts to the newborn Jesus. But like most all the children in the world I was not into that part of the season yet. That came later in life, but at least it came.

It was late and it was a Christmas card night, it had snowed, but the night was clear with the moon and stars bright against a black December sky, as I got out of bed once again. I was not allowed to leave my room on Christmas eve after I was sent to bed, so I got up to get a book when I glanced out of the window and couldn't believe what I saw. I saw in the distant sky the familiar scene emblazoned upon millions of children's minds, Santa Claus and his reindeers high in the black star bright night flying away toward the full moon. I don't remember what I thought or did, except I never told anyone before except Grandma Hazel and now you our grandchildren.

I never knew why I was allowed to see this magical person, most kids don't you know. Perhaps it was because children and grandparents share a common experience, the experience of discovery. The discovery that there are things out there that we don't exactly understand and maybe never were meant to. Some things just have to be taken on faith. So enjoy the discoveries and have a wonderful and happy life. It will make grandma and grandpa very happy if you do.

A Moment In Miss Eula's Magical Garden
a trip of fancy and made-up words.



The bright sun glinted off the bronze bird feeder that gently swayed in a corner of Miss Eula's magical garden. It was Spring sun, the foolin' kind she was apt to say when goaded, but nonetheless it was. The birds that flew over the high fence to graze at the trough were unaware of the metaphorsis that occurred when they passed through the invisible border of plain ordinary black and white mundane everyday sort of you know plainness. The brown, gray, dirty white, tan sorta conglomerated mix and match coverings of their little bodies would when passing over into Miss Eula's world feel more alive, like they had absorbed some magical elixir of contentment, mega doses of Dr. Peppers pepper. Their visage transformed into an inexact sight of sparkling gems, bright, beautiful, but beautiful and pleasing to the eye. The sometimes frenetic chirping transformed into a cohesive choir of such beauty that God's own would be in awe and inspired.

No ordinary tree existed in this garden, although when they were brought to this place they were trees of green and red plumage, undistinguished and well just ordinary. But soon as the spell passed over their ordinariness each green and red leaf transformed from its everydayness to a ready for inspection sparklingly neat recruit standing before his sergeant, shampooed, buffed, spit shinned and eager to be looked at and approved of. It's leaves became a more lustrous, shiny green and/or red perfect in size and shape, each as if individually selected and applied by hand to the strong branches proud of it's leaves like a doting parent loves each of his children.

The trees grew to an exactness in height and girth as if to show off a little, but were in fact shielding or allowing the warm rays of the sun to reach the surface of the garden in just the perfect exposure, not too much so it would dry out the earth or shade too much to inhibit the growth of the seedlings just emerging from beds of soft dark earth, turned and turned again, nourished and nourished again, natures womb as it were readying itself to reproduce replicas of God's moments of showoffiness, a game of oneupmanship, each trying to outdo the other in beauty and grandeur.

Don't expect flowers of red, blue or yellow, but try and visualize red splashes of color from Van Gogh's palette after spending an afternoon mixing and remixing, agonizing over this tone and that addition to create the perfect red, or Turner creating the blue the color of the ocean or the sky at that certain time of day when the contrast is most beautiful, or shades of yellow from Gauguin's brush that most exactly replicates the beaches at high noon in brilliant sunlight.

Miss Eula's garden for all who visit behind the demarcation line of reality and fantasy is comparable to a drug induced trip into colors, smells, sounds, feelings; a place where colors become all encompassing and forever changing, colors becoming solid and feel-able, where the eyes believe you can grab a handful of red or yellow, blue and green and cast it out before you as if you were sowing seed, seed for the soul. It is a place for imagine-ings and imagine-ers, a place to contemplate a moment passed or imagine moments to come, a refuge or a starting place, a place of peaceful thoughts or wanderings, forever changing, forever incomplete, forever beckoning.

How then do we find Miss Eula's garden you ask, and of course the answer is we all have Miss Eula's Magical Garden residing in ourselves. We all have the ability to imagine or fantasize. To think good thoughts, if circumstances are against you, to fictionalize for effect, to just think silly thoughts occasionally to lighten the internal load we sometimes pile upon ourselves, to just find that inner beauty we hopefully all have, whatever the motivation, maybe just for fun. Come visit, Miss Eula's waiting.

(C) copyright 2008 Jim Kittelberger