A Sad Goodbye by Bea Tifton

  Dear Readers, 

As you know, my mother, Caroline Clemmons, passed away May 1. My sister and I have decided not to continue the blog as it would just be too sad for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the amazing authors who posted each month and to the amazing readers who faithfully read them.  Please continue to read my mother's books and those of the talented ladies who belonged to this blog. Thank you for the wonderful years we all shared our love of romance. 

Caroline Clemmons
1940-2026

A Goodbye to My Mother by Bea Tifton

 My blog is late, because I have struggled to write it, dear Reader. My amazing, beautiful, clever mother passed away May 1st,  and my heart is broken. 

I have so many wonderful memories of my mother. One of the earliest is when I was three years old. Each year Mom made Christmas cookies. She made some shaped like the state of Texas, and I was thrilled when she told me I was old enough to put the little candy circle right where we lived on the cookie. I felt so grown up and privileged. My mother absolutely loved Christmas. Our house was bursting with decorations, store bought and hand made. We had things I made at school, things family members had sewn, and lovely things Mom had bought along the way. Each year we would go look at Christmas lights, and this continued into my adulthood. But when I was a little girl, Mom would make a yearly trek to this craft/hobby store called Arnold's. It was in a strip mall built to look like houses so it was like going to a little village. Arnold's was a magical place with all these wonderful displays and items to purchase. I especially loved the doll house section. Mom would let me wander and look by myself. And then we would go to downtown Dallas to drive around and look at the elaborate Christmas displays in the store windows, especially the site of the original Neiman Marcus. 

My parents treasured knowledge. Both voracious readers, they read to me from infancy, and I became a reader early on. We would go to this strip mall library branch just around the corner from our grocery store. There was never any limit to how many books we could check out, just as long as we didn't get more than we could read before the return due date. And I was encouraged to ask questions. My mother answered my questions patiently and when it was relevant, she steered me to our set of encyclopedias or the dictionary. When it was time to write research papers, I was the only one among my friends who wasn't overwhelmed. And I truly think that this learning process and encouragement is partly why I became a librarian. 

We went to museums frequently, including on our vacations, as well as numerous historical sites. My parent made history seem relevant and vivid. But when I asked an odd question, my mother never laughed. She had hung a print of a Renoir portrait, "Little Irene"  in my bedroom. I was about three or four, and I stared at that portrait  many times as I was going to sleep and wondered and wondered. One night as Mom was tucking me in, I asked the burning question, "Why does that girl have a fish in her hair?" Mom looked startled, then looked closely at the painting. She said, "It does look like a fish. I never noticed that. But it's just the way her hair ribbon is tied. It's just a hair ribbon." She didn't me feel embarrassed or foolish. 

My mother loved antiques. When my sister was in school and I was small, we would go to an antique store close to her school and look around. Mom usually made small purchases, or simply looked, but one day she asked me to help her choose something to buy for the house. I choose a brass Kwan Yin statue. Mom put it in layaway and carefully paid it out. We moved so frequently when I was growing up but that statue was always lovingly and carefully packed. I have it in my living room now. Mom brought it when she and my father came to live with me. We continued to look at antique stores my whole life and I remember our first cream tea. We all dressed up and Mom took us to seemingly distant and exotic Dallas to a special tea room and it was a real event. I still have a love of antiques. Mom and I had our own antique business for a few years and it was wonderful. 

Four and a half years ago, my parents moved in with me. My father's Parkinson's had progressed to the point of pain and he mourned having his own house. But Mom was thrilled. We are so similar that we had fun talking about everything. It was like having a slumber party every day, even as her own health declined much more than  she wanted her loyal readers and friends to know. We watched movies as a family each night and after my father passed away Mom and I continued to do so. We loved the same kind of things so we gleefully streamed old movies and British mysteries, with occasional Hallmark movies or episodes from HGTV shows thrown in. Mom's favorite movie and one of mine is "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." We watched it once a month. Every Thursday was pizza night. Nothing interrupted pizza night for us and Mom absolutely loved it for some reason. It feels weird not to order pizza now but I just can't bring myself to do so yet. We always had the same delivery man, a very nice Ukrainian man who was probably a teacher or a doctor or something in his own country. I wonder if he's noticed our absence. 

I've had vivid, intense nightmares my entire life. When I was a little girl, Mom would come and sit with me, holding my hand until I was able to fall asleep. But this last month has been a waking nightmare. A month ago Mom fell at home and broke her arm, so she spent four days in the hospital. The doctor wanted her to go  to a rehabilitation hospital, but she was too weak to stand by herself. You see, she had been grieving my father's death deeply since he died May 29, 2025. From Christmas on, though, she seemed to decline rapidly. She would sleep all day and I would wake her up to eat, then she would fall asleep again. I took her to doctors, encouraged her, and did everything I knew to do. She would rally herself to come watch movies each night. We did get a very good skilled nursing facility, the best in the city. They just happened to have a bed. She received excellent care. But that Wednesday night, the nurse called me right as I was about to go to sleep and told me they were sending her to the ER for "breathing difficulties." I met her at the ER and we spent the entire night with tests and breathing treatments, then she was admitted to the hospital late that night. The next day at 2:00 p.m. she was transferred to a hospice center. Then at 12:45 a.m. on May 1, the most important person to me in the world passed away. I had been sitting with her for two days, holding her hand so she wouldn't be scared as she fell asleep. 

Caroline Clemmons 1940-2026

Pexels.com
Olaga Solodilova "Cozy Christmas Mantel with Festive Decorations, Framed Art, and a Holiday Tree

We Need a Little Christmas by Bea Tifton

 Caroline Clemmons is a little under the weather, so I am filling in today. 

We celebrate Christmas in my family. Leading up to the big day, my mother and I have several things we like to do. Mom and I love Christmas decorations. LOVE them. We have way too many of them, but still we buy more. Since we combined households, it looks like Christmas threw up in our house as we drag box after box out of the garage. My poor father was a bit of a minimalist, but he gritted his teeth and didn't say anything. This year I have replaced our not so great tree with a new, more realistic looking one. We have to have artificial because everyone in the family is allergic to the real ones. But we cover our tree in ornaments, unwrapping memories and telling stories as we decorate. 

One year at my parents' house, we were decorating a tree we'd had for many years. There was a terrible noise, and the tree pulled out of its base with a groan and fell over  onto the hard tile. Beloved ornaments shattered. My mother had tears in her eyes as Dad and I scrambled to same the ones we could. After that, even with the new tree, Dad secured it to the wall. 

Even our yard is decorated. My father did a wonderful job with that. In recent years we had a younger,  more spry man put up the actual house lights, but Dad took care of the lawn decorations. We don't use those inflatables, but we had two lighted deer, one that moves, an angel, and some lighted candy canes. The candy canes came from a neighbor who was tired of them. They were the older, bigger, well made ones. Mom had wanted some for years and I was proud of my acquisition. The yard looked fabulous. One night, someone stole all of the candy cane lights. They came back for the angel the next night but my dogs barked and the thieves dropped it. Mom was crushed and we were very disappointed. My neighborhood usually doesn't have problems with theft and we felt so violated. The following year I bought some new candy canes to replace the original ones, but they were newer, smaller, and not as well made. This year, I'm not sure I can get everything up and running but we do have the house lights connected and on a timer. 

Mom and I love to drive around looking at Christmas lights. There is an older, wealthy neighborhood close to us and each year there is a house tour. We like to drive through the neighborhood and look at all of the beautiful displays. In the next town, there is a neighborhood famous for their Christmas lights. People come from miles around to see them and the entire neighborhood participates. Displays run from quirky to traditional and there are even some Hanukkah lights. The houses are beautiful, many of them what I would call mansions, and there are several people with hot chocolate or popcorn stands. It's free and there's such a fun small town feel in the middle of a bustling metroplex. 

There are several stores that have huge Christmas inventories. Mom and I love to stroll through each year just looking. We usually do end up buying one or two new ornaments. What can I say? It's a sickness. 

The entire family watches Christmas movies. There are several we never miss, such as the original Miracle on 34th Street and the Muppet Christmas Carol. Dad and I both love A Christmas Carol and we drove Mom crazy by watching every version we could find. Mom loves the Hallmark Christmas movies and we try to watch a lot of them. 

This year, we aren't sure what we are doing. We're going to be somewhat subdued. We lost my father in late May and we're still heartbroken, of course. It seems strange to just do what we always do and thinking of past Christmases make us sad at this point. Some day we may be able to smile as we remember my father but this year, feelings are still too raw. And my mother's  grief for her own parents and other people we've lost has been sharpened. We will do something just to maintain some sense of normalcy. One thing this year has taught us is that we never know how much time we will have together so we need to take time to celebrate these occasions as they come. And to celebrate each other by spending time together. 

What traditions do you have leading up to whatever holiday you celebrate in December? Leave a comment below. 

Photo Credits:

Pexels.com

Nick Collins "Shallow Focus Photography of Green Christmas Tree"

Cottonbro Studios "Facade of a House with Christmas Decorations"

Natalia S "Festive Christmas Lawn Display with Lights"

Magaly Taboada "Festive Christmas Wreath on Green Door"

Pixabay "Four Yellow Lighted Candles"

Cottonbro Studios "Christmas Socks Hanging at a Fireplace"

Happy Halloween by Bea Tifton

We don't really do much for Halloween. It's just my mother and I and the neighborhood kids don't go door to door anymore. We don't have a lot of kids in our neighborhood, anyway. But we do put a pumpkin sign out and a few fall things. We order pizza, watch Practical Magic and Ghostbusters, and call it a night. But it wasn't always that way. 

When I was growing up, I loved Halloween. Not the scary haunted houses, but the kitschy stuff.  We were allowed to wear our costumes to school that  day and most elementary schools had Halloween carnivals. My mother would let me run around the carnival with my friends in the crisp fall air. 

And we trick or treated. We went house to house in our costumes, first chaperoned by my mother or father and then as a rite of passage, we were allowed to go alone. People gave generously, some even distributing caramel apples or popcorn balls. We were only allowed to eat those if the people were family friends. In fact, usually my father would buy our candy from us and we were allowed to buy candy straight from the store with the money. So not completely worry free even in the 70s and 80s. But, it was the experience and the excitement that made the night. 

I know that  people don't like to open their doors now. And it's not really safe to go door to door, anyway. Now if I had kids I would probably do what my father did even if it was a bit of a buzzkill. And most schools don't let kids wear their costumes or have school Halloween parties. When I was a teacher and a school librarian, we weren't allowed to decorate for Halloween. We could only use fall and "harvest" things. And no Halloween parties. (I would usually just happen to make "dirt pudding" that day for my students.) Some schools would have a "Storybook Character Parade" and maintained various degrees of strictness as to whether Batman is a storybook character. When I was a librarian, kids would come to me frantically asking me to give them a book for their costumes. Graphic novels came in handy for superheroes. And some schools have Harvest Festivals, but most have "Trunk or Treat" where cars line up in the school parking lot and the teachers and volunteer parents distribute candy or have simple games. It's safer, but I'm glad we got to go door to door. 

I feel like we've lost something. That sense of community. That sense of mystery and anticipation. That sense of fun and freedom. Private homes spend more on Halloween decorations than ever before and many spend much more than on Christmas decorations. But the actual celebration has changed so much. Still, at least kids get to do something. It would be a shame if Halloween completely went away. 

Do you still get Trick or Treaters? 

 

Photo Credits from Pixels.com

Monstera Production "Jack O' Lantern with Black Hat"

Charles Parker "Unrecognizable Kids in Halloween Costumes Knocking on House Door"

Thirdman "Jack O' Lantern on a Wooden Bench"

Living on the Surface of the Sun by Bea Tifton

Texas is a beautiful state. It has every type of typography one would want, seashores, mountains, bayous, forests, plains, and desert. There’s so much history in quirky little towns and big cities.

But Texas is pure D hot. One summer I asked Mom why we lived here. She replied, “This is where the stagecoach broke down.” Texas usually goes from summer to winter. And with climate change, it’s hot from April to October. I read that many of the people who are streaming into Texas move back after experiencing one of our summers. (Still, so many more are pouring in and I can’t find a darn parking space anywhere. But that’s a different blog for a different day.) 

Big Bend, Texas

South Padre Island, Texas

   

       

Houston, Texas

Davis Mountains, Texas

Big Cypress Bayou, Texas

South Plains, Texas

I cannot take the heat. I went on one date with a man who knew everything. It was exhausting. He’s a runner, and when I explained that I cannot exercise in the heat he said smugly, “Everyone can exercise in the heat. You just need to hydrate.” Did you notice I said one date? But I have a friend who was an EMT. He confirmed that once someone has had heat exhaustion, they are much more prone to it from then on. And I’ve never been able to get hot; I pass out, which is quite embarrassing and inconvenient. So, I stay inside when it’s hot. Thank goodness that pretty much everywhere I go is air conditioned. The man who invented AC, Willis Carrier, should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. Just sayin’.

Willis Carrier

It can be disappointing, though. Texas has so many fun festivals during the hot months, and I simply can’t go. And people don’t understand why I have to say no to invitations to hike, kayak, picnic, etc. Because, of course, all I'd have to do is hydrate.

Sometimes I wish I lived in a place that had four well defined seasons. Especially fall, my favorite. I love those photos of fall colors from other parts of the country. And we do have some color changes, despite what many people say. Still, no one is going to travel to Texas in the fall just to go leaf peeping. 

Lost Maples State Park, Texas

We’re in the hottest month of the year now. But I’m safely tucked up in my house with the air conditioning.  Just like Willis Carrier intended.

Photo Credits: 

Wikimedia Commons: "Texas Lone Star State"

Pexels.com: Genevieve Ma'yet  "Asphalt Road on Wasteland"

Pexels.com: Andrea Hinajosa "White and Gray Bird on Brown sand Near Body of Water"

Pexels.com: Jeswin Thomas "A Wooden Deck in a Forest"

Wikimedia Commons: Justin Cozart "Elephant Mountain"

Wikimedia Commons: "Big Cypress Bayou" 

Wikimedia Commons: "South Plains Texas Wind Turbines"

Wikimedia Commons: "Willis Carrier in 1915"

Wikimedia Commons: "The Lost Maples State Park Fall Colors in Texas" 

Pexels.com: Cottonbro Studio "A Woman Sitting on a Windowsill While Holding a Cup of Coffee and a                     Book"

No Llama Drama by Bea Tifton

I am filling in for the lovely and talented Caroline Clemmons. 

Do you incorporate animals into your stories? Do your characters have pets? In real life and in books, I like people best when they love animals. And do your characters have some animal apart from their pets that they just love? I adore my cats and my dogs, but I also absolutely love llamas. 

One year for my birthday a good friend and I went to a llama ranch. The llamas are trained to interact with people and they are very well taken care of. There were several options for activities, but we chose the lecture and the meet and greet. The owner gave a llama lecture in the barn. Did you know llamas can run up to 35 miles an hour? They are often used as guard animals because they will chase off predators like coyotes. And like their cousins the camels, they spit when they are annoyed. If the ears go back, the lecturer warned, you go back. They have had enough and they are about to let 'er rip. 

After the lecture, we were allowed to play with the llamas and take selfies They all have funny names like Banana Llama and Dolly Llama. None of the llamas spit on anyone. It was one of the best birthday trips I've taken.

One year the daughter of one of my closest friends at the time got married. The wedding was held in a lovely outdoor venue in the middle of nowhere. I was considered family, so I stayed close to the mother of the bride and tried to keep her from having a nervous breakdown. We were standing there chatting when she yelled, "Oh my God, where are the llamas? We paid extra for the llamas." She was almost hysterical, so I assured her I would find out. I was circling the reception hall looking for someone who worked there when I spotted the manager. I was running after him (in my dress and very uncomfortable shoes) when he began running. In the distance, I could see a rogue llama jumping over a ditch. He led a merry chase, but the manager finally managed to grab him. Another male llama and a female llama briefly attended the wedding, moving among the guests before the ceremony started. Even for a llama lover like me, it was a bit surreal. Fun, but surreal. 

I live in one of the fastest growing cities in the country, and, while I have a decent sized yard, we're not zoned for llamas. I have fantasies of moving out to the country and getting a couple just to have them, but I know I won't actually do that. But it's fun to play with them whenever I see them. 

Do you have an animal that you particularly like? 

My Father by Bea TIfton

 I got the call at 2:00 in the morning. Phone calls at that time of night are never good, and this one was devastating. My father had passed away in the hospital from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

When I was a little girl, I idolized my father. He went out of town for his work as a defense contractor and I anxiously awaited his return. Each year we went on vacation. We loved going to San Antonio, but we also went to Washington, D.C., California, Arizona, New Mexico, among other states. Dad often went to Europe for work and one year we went with him, visiting Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and England. Dad wanted us to experience every country we could, even if it was just for a day.

When he was younger, he loved to sing silly songs around the house, off key but with much enthusiasm. Before we went on vacation, he would always sing, “We’re on our way to somewhere, the three of us and you.” My favorite was “Be Kind to Your Web-footed friends, for the duck may be somebody’s mother. Be kind to your friends in the swamp, where the weather is very, very, dawmp.” I’m not sure where he got some of his little gems, but I just loved them. And I can’t hear Peter, Paul, and Mary’s song, “Lemon Tree” without hearing his voice singing it. Now it makes me tear up.

One day, out of the blue, when Dad and I were the only ones home, he asked, “Want to make popcorn balls?” Of course I did. He didn’t use a recipe; we made popcorn and he made syrup to coat them. After we had shaped the popcorn balls and triumphantly placed them on waxed paper, my mother came home. As she surveyed the piles of dishes and the counter that we had effectively shellacked, she gasped and clutched her pearls. It‘s a good thing she didn’t have a weak heart or we would have lost her. Cleaning up the kitchen wasn’t as fun as getting it dirty, but the popcorn balls were delicious.

Dad loved to fish. Being a rocket scientist can be a stressful job, but when we were on the water he just let all that stress go. I didn’t fish and my mother sat and read. I looked for turtles, watched the birds, and just looked around at the peaceful lake. When Dad was through fishing, he would take a couple of laps around the lake and I loved that more than almost anything. We saw some amazing things when we were in the boat. When we lived in Florida, we saw a manatee and Dad carefully maneuvered slowly around him. And once we rounded the curve of the lake and an entire flock of flamingoes took flight. I still remember the sense of wonder as I watched the magnificent birds fly away.

Dad had an amazing life. He was extremely intelligent, and his interests included history, paleontology, archeology, especially of the Anasazi culture, Biblical archeology, history, astronomy, and meteorology. He would patiently answer my questions and he just knew a lot about a lot of things. He couldn’t talk about everything because of his high security clearance, but he still had plenty of anecdotes. He walked away from two helicopter crashes, he walked off one flight as some highjackers walked on (no one was injured on the flight and they went to Cuba), he had several patents for things that were used in his work and he actually invented a cow EKG to discover why cattle were dying on cattle trucks. He was headhunted to work for NASA for the first trip to the moon but he didn’t want to move to Houston. He was always fascinated with rockets and I wondered if that was why. And some fun things are he worked at the radio station in Lubbock when his classmate, Buddy Holly, came in to record. He rode on one flight with Elvis. Dad didn’t try to push through the entourage and talk to him but he said a woman sat in Elvis’ lap the entire way.

There are already things I wished I had asked him, stories I’ll never hear. I think, “Oh, I need to tell Dad,” or “Dad and I can watch that movie together.” Then I remember.

I love you, Dad. And I know you loved me, too.

 

 

Photo Credits: 
Dad with a baby Bea, personal collection
Manuel Munoz "Lemons Growing on Tree Under Sunlight" Pexels.com
Dad with a good catch, personal collection
Shuttercraftsman "Beautiful Flamingos in Turkish Wetlands" Pexels.com
Lilburn Smith 1937-2025

WHERE THE WAGON TRAIN BROKE DOWN By Caroline Clemmons

One of my favorite songs opens, "Summertime and the livin' is easy...." In spite of that, summer is my least favorite season. Please give me spring and fall with more moderate temperatures.  I donate my sunscreen lotion to the sun lovers while I choose to remain indoors with a good book and soothing music.

That's what I'd choose, all right, but life doesn't work that way, does it?

Once we had a dark blue car with the same color leather seats. We kept towels in the vehicle to sit on when wearing shorts. We also threw a towel over the steering wheel if we had to park in the open. Nothing like fastening a molten metal seat belt buckle over a child, right? Car manufacturers have caught on since those days, and the interior of modern cars are not quite the roasting pans of the past. 

I live in North Central Texas, and we have many extremely hot days. Once when friends from Tampa visited, the temperature was 113F, unusually high for us. Their ten-year-old son asked me, "Why do you live here?"

My usual reply to this complex question is, "This is where the wagon train broke down."

I'm still not a fan of summer. 

Will You Be My Valentine? By Bea Tifton

 

Ah, Valentine’s Day. The air is scented with roses and chocolate is on the tip of many tongues.

I am not dating anyone right now, so the day is not filled with romance for me. Nor, however, is it filled with angst. It’s just another day, more or less. I’m more excited about “Chocolate is 50% Off Day.”

Many women have begun celebrating “Galentine’s Day,” a day to celebrate with women friends. I like that idea. It’s fun and cheerful. I’ve never lamented the years I don’t have that special guy with whom to exchange soulful looks over candlelight. Really, it just doesn’t bother me; I’m too independent. But some women are really bummed out. And some women just want to celebrate friendship, which is wonderful.  I’m all for anything Girl Power.

When I was a teacher, Valentine’s Day meant tons of flowers, stuffed animals, and chocolate. I especially remember that brand of chocolate that had cute little decorated boxes shaped like hearts, but it contained so much filler that the chocolate tasted like wax. And I never quite knew what to do with the stuffed animals afterwards. I usually saved them for the rest of the year, and then quietly donated them to a charity thrift shop. The flowers were fun even though they didn’t last long. But I cherished every gift. They were, well, heartfelt. One year some workmen were repairing the school’s roof. As I trooped by with an armful of gifts and flowers, I heard one man say, “All the teachers are walking by with so much stuff!” He sounded quite impressed

I remember one year I had just started the “Will we or won’t we” phase of a relationship with a guy I really liked. I wasn’t sure what to do. I stood at the card section of the store just completely overthinking what to do. I finally settled on a comedic card saying, “I wasn’t sure what to get you this year. This is either a Valentine or it’s not, depending on what you did.” I sent it, but he didn’t send anything back. We never did start dating. Sigh.

This year, I’ll exchange Valentine’s with my parents and my close friends. My parents and I will probably even go out to lunch. Then that night while we stream movies, we’ll stuff our faces with candy. I know I have friends and family who love me all year. That’s good enough for me. But chocolate is always welcome.

How do you celebrate Valentine's Day? Leave a comment below. 

Photo Credits: Pexels.com
Jill Wellington "Heart Baked Cookies"
Andrea Piacquadio "Women Holding Wine Glasses" 
RDNE Stock Project "A Valentine's Gift on Wooden Table"
Alex Green "Woman in Red Long Sleeve Shirt"

Winter Wonderland by Bea Tifton

 Filling in for the lovely and talented Caroline Clemmons.

Winter is finally upon us in North Texas. We are still going back and forth from mild to cold temperatures, and we have yet to have a hard freeze. We have small dogs in our family, and a couple of the cuties were sporting light Christmas sweaters during the holidays. When it’s cold enough again, I’ll put on some winter ones instead.

Now that our climate is getting warmer, Christmas sweaters for people are usually out of the question. Christmas shirts are the norm now, long sleeved if we’re lucky. And forget white Christmases.

We seldom have snow in North Texas. It’s more usual to have ice once or twice a year. So the much awaited snow days are really ice days. But sometimes, we do have snowy weather. It usually melts within a day. One year when I was a librarian, our students who were native to Mexico were so excited because the forecast said there was a remote chance of snow. The other teachers and I were gently trying to explain that it just didn’t snow much here because we didn’t want them to be disappointed. That night it dumped several inches, the most I ever remember. School had to be cancelled for a week. The kids were in heaven. And the teachers didn’t mind missing a few days, either. That was before schools had to meet remotely even during bad weather days.

When it’s going to ice or snow in North Texas, people panic. They run to the grocery store as though it was the Apocalypse. All milk, bread, and bottled water disappear as people hurry to get to the last remaining groceries in the free world.  We don’t have fleets of snow plows so things pretty much come to a halt.

Because I don’t get to experience it, I love to look at photos of snowy winters. I don’t have to do any winterizing or experience the inconvenience of trying to travel  during extreme weather. Sometimes I think I’d like to live in a part of the country that gets a little cooler in the winter, but I don’t want to live anywhere where I’m required to plug in my car to keep the battery from freezing or anything. Living in Texas, there’s no danger of that.

 

Do you have snowy winters where you live? Leave a comment below.

Photo Credits: Pexels.com
Ricardo Perez-Saravia "A Hairy Dog Wearing a Christmas Costume"
Hunt on Photo Studio "Girl Wearing Winter Clothes Having Fun Playing on Snow Fall"
Jonathan Peterson "Photo of Forest With Snow"

 

 

Christmastime is Here by Bea Tifton

Christmas is almost upon us. I haven’t gotten anything done. It’s one of those years when it just crept up on me. It’s going to be scaled down, anyway, for a variety of reasons. But I will find time for decorating, gift wrapping, and Christmas light viewing.

Christmas was easy as a kid. We actually got to do Christmas things at school, singing Christmas songs, doing Christmas art projects, and having the annual party. And as soon as the Sears Wishbook came out, it was time to circle, hint, and hope.

My most distinct memory came on a late December afternoon when I was about five. I had been firmly indoctrinated into the “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake” camp, and one day I was playing in our living room when I saw a small bearded face look into the window. I ran to my mother and yelled, “I just saw one of Santa’s elves!” Mom listened politely to the entire recap and said, “Oh, that’s nice,” as she walked calmly to the phone to call the police. The entire neighborhood had been abuzz about a peeping Tom and I’d just had a sighting.

As a teacher, I was fortunate to teach just as the tide was turning on holidays and letting children do something enjoyable once in a while. Now the poor teachers have to do so much test prep most of them are forbidden to take time for anything considered to be frivolous time wasters. Poor kids. But we would do art projects, learn about holiday customs around the world, and read Christmas and Hanukah stories. One church coordinated an angel program with the district in which I taught and I always participated in that, running the presents to the parents after we got loose on the last day of school before the break. The organizers were smart enough to make sure the teachers were assigned a family from another school. I loved how excited my students got about bringing the money and I always let them view the presents before I wrapped them. It was a low wealth school but the parents were so generous with what they could spare.

Even though Christmas is different as an adult, it can still be fun and meaningful. But if I see one of Santa’s elves peeking at me through the window, I’m calling the cops.

Whatever you celebrate, I hope your holiday is peaceful and memorable for all the right reasons.

Photo Credits:
Wikimedia Commons- Karen Arnold "December 25 Calendar Sheet"
Pexels.com
Vo Van Tien "Young Girl Enjoying Christmas Indoors in Hoi An"
Boris Hamer "Child Writing Letter to Santa"
Gary Spears "Close-Up of Christmas Decoration Hanging on Tree" 

Kristin Vogt "Women's Zip Up Hooded Jacket"

Kindness Still Matters by Bea Tifton

Kindness. It’s so important. So vital to our very existence. Some tiny kindness is like a butterfly fluttering its wings and causing a chain of events that lead to a hurricane. But in a good way. We hear “Pass it on,” but do we? In the isolation of social media and working  at home, entire days might pass without seeing another human being. Or those people become names on a screen and the comments section is open hunting season.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I remember a little boy in one of my classes when I taught fourth grade. He was not a hard worker. Not a mean bone in his body, but no gumption or sense of responsibility. I talked to his mother several times that year. She was a dear woman and tried her best to light a fire under her son. On Valentine’s Day, I saw him in the hall with a huge teddy bear. His mother had him give it to me when she saw me. He was very grumpy and upset. I thought he was just embarrassed. Then later when we were having the Valentine’s Day party he said, “I wanted everyone to see that I got the biggest present so they’d be impressed.” It wasn’t about being kind. It was just a status thing. Suddenly, I really didn’t like that bear.

Don’t do something kind just so everyone can see you. When we do something kind for someone, our body actually releases endorphins.

And we’ve made a person's or some furry being’s life a tiny bit better. People like to pay for the next person’s coffee or fast food order. That made my week once! But maybe go to a school and offer to pay off some child’s outstanding cafeteria bill. Or donate to an animal shelter. One of the big box stores (you know which one) has affordable little blankets on sale this time of year. The dog isn’t going to care if his comforting blanket has Christmas trees on it, I promise.

Open the door for someone. People don’t smile at each other in stores anymore. Make a concentrated effort to smile and say, “Good morning” to people.

You may think one person can’t make a difference. First of all, you know you are doing whatever you can to be a kind person. That’s important and it’s okay to feel good about that. And you never know. One day I saw a homeless lady. She apologized for being in my way (she wasn’t) and shuffled away. I took her hands and said, “Bless you. You are a child of God. You matter.” She began crying and sobbed, “No one has ever told me I matter.”

What if someone had told her years ago?

 

 

Photo Credits: Pexels.com
Debadutta "Close Up Photo of Monarch Butterfly on Top of Flower"
Gerardo Manzano "Woman Sitting on the Sidewalk Embracing a Big Teddy Bear"  
Dmitry Ovsyannikov "Touching the Nose of a Dog Lying in a Cage"
MART PRODUCTION "Homeless Elderly Woman Holding a Placard"
Jill Wellington "Silhouette Photo of Woman Against During Golden Hour"