Thursday, November 21, 2013

"Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge, and children with special needs inspire a very, very special love." ~ Sarah Palin

Greetings friends and neighbors. It's Thursday, November 21, 2013, and the memories keep stacking up here at the ole blogger Christmas ranch. Special needs children and Santa. What a combination! I do my best to bring joy to these little ones that are beloved of the Lord, but I will tell you, Santa at times has to fight back the tears. I am knocked down by moms whose lives were forever changed when they had one of these special babies. I can tell you this: The devotion, patience, and love shown by these moms is something worthy of our recognition and respect. May God bless each of them. Amen. The other folks, well, especially some of the adults, and, okay, I'm going to say it, and in particular some of the ladies, well, they can be about as silly as they come. As we made our way into the Marriott last Saturday morning a couple of ladies over at the front desk spotted us and came running, literally, up to where we were standing. One of them said she was a Santa fanatic and she was actually jumping up and down. She then asked if I had known Simply Santa. I told her I didn't think so. She said his real name was Bobby but he had passed and it was so tragic because he had been such a great Santa. She was finally able to calm herself down long enough to get a photo and we hurriedly made our way to our destination.

WordPress is a big blog hosting utility. It's not the one I use but it is a big one that is worldwide in scope. They recently made the decision to publish the statistics regarding the blogging activity accomplished through their portal. They report that nearly 400 million people access over 14 billion pages each month. That, of course, means millions of new blogs each day and millions of comments. That surely makes me a small fish in a big pond. But, I'm the only fish I can be, therefore, I, like so many others across the globe, attempt to sketch out a corner of my world to share each day. It's stimulating to think that others throughout the world sit down each day at their keyboard and do their version of what I do in their own language and directed towards their target audience. As I sat on the bench outside of the hotel waiting on my ride, a Japanese family approached me. They spoke hardly any English but motioned for me to please make a photo memory of their daughter with Santa. She was about 8 or 9 and smiling from ear to ear. Just think. Her dad now had a story and a photo to share with his readers. Hey Jack, it is a small world after all!

During my first series of appearances I easily had my photo taken over 400 times and the vast majority were pleasant experiences, but not 100%. I know I have been consistent in saying how the parents in this scenario are most fascinating to observe. Most of them are courteous and complimentary to Santa and the majority even apologize when their child is out of sorts or unruly. Most. Not all. I had this one lady who was decked out in her Alumni football stuff from head to toe. I'll not name the school but they are winning this year and they do use the word 'football' as part of their quarterback's name. At any rate, her little darling wanted no part of sitting, standing, being held by, or even in the vicinity of Santa. She was incensed. How could this be? You know, they are, after all, having a winning season so everything should be going well. Right? Here's the funny part. She whispered to the helper lady in a not so quiet voice how that she didn't know what the problem was because her little man had never been afraid of anything in his life. (All 18 months of it.) That is until that day. And, yes, she was glancing at me when she said it. Defective Santa? I think I had ample proof that this was not the case but there you go. It is, after all is said and done, in the eye of the beholder. In addition to that, it allowed me to share this little story with you. Have a great rest of the day and may God bless us, one and all. Amen.       .....More later.

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