Christmas Magic

Heyz to everyone, hope you're all doing great. Well its my favorite time of the year again, Christmas. Judi and I both have always been worse than kids this time of the year. One thing that many of you may not know though is that I'm one of Santa's magical elves. Yep thats right TW the magical Santa's helper. Its well known in my family and the families of my friends that I have a "Santa's Magical Mailbox", and I"m tight with the jolly ole Santa, me being a magical elf and all. ....laffin. This all started about 20 years ago when one of my nieces wanted to write Santa a letter to let him know what she wanted. At the time she was about 4 years old, and was the number one Santa fan in the world. Being Santa's big elf buddy, I had to keep her informed year around as to what he and the rest of the elves at the North Pole were doing. Well I sat her down and helped her write Santa a letter, being sure not to leave out anything. We checked and double checked to make sure nothing had been left out, down to the accessories for Barbie and makeup.
Of course I helped her add things that she might want besides the ones she had already mentioned, being the professional elf that I am, and being in the know of the
stuff a lil girl like her might get. After the letter was all finished and Regan my niece had decided that she had everything written down, of course we had to draw the magical North Pole Star on the envelope, or it just would not go. Her eyes were all lit up and she had a grin so wide that I was sure her jaws were gonna burst. Yep it was time to go to the "Magical Santa's Mailbox". Excited was not the word for it, there just aren't any words to describe it. She was a little skeptical at first about me being a magical elf due to the fact that I was quite tall for an elf, but I quickly assured her that I shrank to elf size at midnight on Christmas Eve so that I could perform my Santa's elf duties. She was quick to take that as pure fact, due to the magic quarter I had in my pocket that turned me elf sized.
Anyway away we went to the road to the "Magical Santas Mailbox", Regan with her letter requesting all kinds of goodies held tight in her hand. By this time she had gathered up quite a crowd to come watch her send her letter to Santa in the "Magical Santa's Mailbox". Arriving at the mailbox she excitedly opened to mailbox door and put her letter in and turned to me and asked, Now what? I asked if she'd said the magic words to send the letter off and she replied no, that I had forgotten to tell them to her. Silly me, what kind of magical elf am I.....sheeshhhhh.
I told her that she had to be real serious and believe that the letter would go to Santa at the North Pole. Of course the trick was she had to close her eyes, turn three turns repeating "Go To Santa, Go To Santa, Go To Santa, and tap the "Magical Santas Mailbox" three times, but of course her yes MUST be closed tight. She did this perfectly and "Walllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" the letter was magically sent to Santa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!She opened the box and the letter was gone and her mouth flew wide open in amazement, she jumped and screamed all excited telling everyone that her Uncle Terry really was a magical elf and we'd sent her letter to Santa in the "Magical Santa's Mailbox". Talk about making someones day.........laffin....it did mine.
Well the "Magical Santa's Mailbox" has sent many a letter to Santa since then, sons, nieces, nephews, friends children and many many more. Well now I have Grandchildren and I'm ready to break out the magical mailbox again, I don't know who looks more forward to it.........yes I do!!!!
Now i love listening to my kids, my neices and nephews all telling their children about me being a magical Santa's elf and the "Magical Santa's Mailbox". Their eyes still light up when telling about it. Ahh......the memories.
Well yall come when ya can, the door is always open to my friends.

Hugz N Handshakes

TW(Terry)

Reality Check

Hey Everyone, thanks for stopping by ole TW's lil blog. I've been doing the same trying to surf around and catch up on reading my friends blogs, which I enjoy very much. You can tell a lot about a person just by reading their blogs, well except mine because I never make a whole lotta sense.....laffin. Guess thats why I call it Rambling.
I learned to face a reality this past week that really upset me and just made me see that PH sucks even more than ever. About this time of the year my youngest son, Steve, and I go on our annual big Duck hunt up in the northern Delta part of the State. This is a once a year thing for me and I always look forward to spending it with Steve and our hunting buddies. This year was no exception, I was ready to go for weeks before it got here, guns all cleaned, duck decoys ready, just all excited to get going. Its about a six hour drive from Poverty hill to where we were going to hunt, almost on the Arkansas state line. The trip went great with the usual lies being told, and the bragging about who was gonna kill the most ducks, just the regular man thing ya know. We arrived at the hunting camp and slept for about 3 hours before getting up at 3:30 am and eating breakfast and preparing for the first day of the hunt. I felt great even with just the few hours sleep. Sometimes I guess I need a reality check, because I don't seem to want to accept that I just can't do what I want to do, the mind is willing but the body just says "No Way."
The first day was a memory jogger though. We had to wade in waist high water for about a quarter of a mile wearing chest wader boots that weight what feels like a ton, especially when you're wading through mud and water. Well as you could understand I'd walk about 20 or 30 yards before I'd have to stop to rest, out of breath and gasping for air. Finally with Steves help though I made it to the place we were going and we had a great time taking our limit of ducks. The only thing the whole time I was hunting all I was thinking about was how I dreaded the walk back out. With about 20 rest stops though I make it back to the truck but was so tired I couldn't hardly muster enough energy to get up into it without my buddies help. What a dose of reality, and a hard shot to my ego. The next day we hunted in a place where I could just drive my ATV to the spot we were hunting, now this was great. I can do this!!! I was tired from hunting the day before but I felt manly again now, I didn't have to have any help, Hallelujah, but my energy level was bottomed out. On the third day I was short of breath just walking 20 feet, reality had set in, I sat down with Steve and told him that I was afraid that this would be my last duck hunt that I couldn't do it anymore. I explained to him that I wanted to hunt as much as I ever did, but my body just wouldn't allow me to. This in itself was a hard thing for me to do, I felt as though I were disappointing my son, who had always looked up to me as his mentor and hunting buddy. Steven looked at me and smiled and said, Dad you are and always have been an inspiration to me, for you to come out and do the things you have done these past few days is amazing, I just hope I can grow to be the caliber and man that you are.
Not only did I leave hunting camp with my dignity intact, I realized that my youngest son has grown up and is already that caliber of man. Thank You Lord.
Well let me get outta here I've still got chores to do. Yall come when ya can, the door is always open to my friends.

Hugz N Handshakes

TW(Terry)