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A quote: “I love Christmas. I’m really sentimental about it. My parents made it awesome for us, and we were allowed to be kids for a long time.” ~~ Michael Buble
I’ll start with a story …
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“Really? Hallmark Channel again?”
“It’s Christmas! You know how much I …”
“Yes. I know. It’s just so much schmaltz and formula …”
“And?”
“Come on, dear, they’re all the same! ‘Driven career girl in the BigCity, USA, is dissatisfied with her life. She returns to Tiny Hometown and meets the blue collar boy she left behind. Happy ending while snow falls’.”
“And?”
“You’re smiling, you sentimental fool.”
“Can I help it if I love watching our own story over and over?”
She slips her arms around him, looking up into his loving eyes, “No. Now kiss me, it’s snowing.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Dupin says: “Remember that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.”
“Don’t try to be my equal. You’re better than that already.”
“You don’t want me to go for my doctorate?”
“Only if it’s for the right reason.”
“I’m not competing with you. I want it for me. To help the world.”
“In that case, we can have two doctors in the house.”
“I’m glad you…. Wait! What did you say?”
“I said—”
“Are you proposing to me?”
“Nope. I just blew that. The ring’s up in the room.”
“I love you!”
Cameron says: She smiled as she kissed me and we ignored the sounds of disgust from the younger family members.
“You are in a more chipper mood than normal,” I observed.
“Of course. You know I love Christmas and I love coming out to this farm to get the tree. But…we might not be able to make it next year.”
“Why not?” I was puzzled because this was a big event with both of our families. All was made clear when she pulled the small mittens out of her jacket.
“Because we’ll probably have to stay at home.”
“A very good argument.”
Brenda opened the box to reveal a sphere of glass in which a landscape of miniature houses blanketed in snow. It made her think of visits to her grandparents up in Indiana, back in the days before the Expulsions. She looked from it to her husband. “Oh, goodness, Drew.It’s beautiful.”
“Go ahead.” Drew gave her that big Shep grin, by turns charming and annoying. “Take it out.”
As she lifted her Christmas present from its wrappings, tiny silvery motes danced within the crystal orb. It put her in mind of a snow globe she’d been given when she turned twelve, old enough to be entrusted with fragile things.
Except snow globes didn’t work properly up here. Lunar gravity was too weak for the particles to fall convincingly. It had to be some other mechanism, maybe some trick of refraction–
And then she remembered where she’d seen them: in the gift shops on the main concourse of Grissom City. Shops that catered to the tourist trade only — those things were not for sale at any price to NASA people, not the technical personnel and not the military pilots who actually flew the spacecraft and commanded the settlements. “Um, Drew, just how did you get this?”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m not going to put my commission at risk over an ornament. We had a tourist who’d overbought on souvenirs and discovered he was above his weight allowance to go back, so he sold it to me for pennies on the dollar.”
Brenda smiled. Trust Drew to find a way to turn a situation like that to his advantage, and make the guy feel like it was a favor. However, she wasn’t complaining, not when just looking at it took her back to those happy days of childhood that had seemed to stretch on forever.
Navig8r says: As a young pup I studied the leg-wrap-leash-tangle maneuver from 101 Dalmations. Turned out, Mitzi from across town liked that movie too. Months later, though we had never met, when our humans passed within leash length, we executed flawlessly. The months and years that followed were pure application of art and science on our part. They rapidly learned to avoid leash pulls by choosing their hug spots within leash length of our favorite fire plug. Appreciative amounts of affection at home without being pestering allowed them to keep the glow for each other and made for generous treats for us.
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