Children
• Elizabeth Gurney Dimsdale, a Quaker, once saw some small boys trying to ring a doorbell. She kindly rang the doorbell for them, but immediately the small boys ran away. She hesitated, and then she ran away, too.
Christmas
• A few Christmas stories: 1) Brian Hyland’s father liked some company at his home in Brick, New Jersey, during the holidays, but not too much and not too long. Therefore, to get rid of company when he got tired of it, he recorded a severe-winter-weather advisory on the Weather Channel and kept it for Christmas. When he felt that it was time for his company to go home, he played the tape and advised everyone to leave right away so that they would be safe at home before the winter storm struck. Brian says, “People grabbed their coats and high-tailed it out of there.” 2) When Hailey Thompson of Westlake Village, California, was little, her father used to run around the house outside ringing sleigh bells loudly on Christmas Eve while her mother told her and her brothers that Santa Claus was flying over their house to deliver presents to the children in the neighborhood. 3) The father of Jonathan Alpert, who is the author of the syndicated column No More Drama,used to disguise his voice by putting wax paper in his mouth and then telephone kids in the neighborhood to say, “Ho ho ho! This is Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy this year? What would you like for Christmas? Don’t forget to leave me cookies and milk.” One year the wax paper did not disguise his voice well enough, so a neighborhood boy said to him, “Mr. Alpert, I know this is you. The real Santa called an hour ago.”
• A nurse once told K. Lynn Wieck, who is also a nurse, about working with leukemia patients at a time when nearly all of them died (things are different now) and when hospitals did not allow children to visit (things are different now). She was caring for a 32-year-old man whom she knew would soon die. It was the Christmas season, and she says, “I asked him what he wanted for Christmas that day and he told me that all he wanted was to see his children. I made a decision I have never regretted.” The nurse talked to the man’s wife and had her bring the children to the hospital the next day, when the nurse, after her strict supervisor had left, allowed the wife and children to visit the seriously ill man. The nurse saw the young children, who were happy to be with their father, who had a wide smile on his face. The family was able to truly visit and create good memories. The day after the visit, with his wife by his side, the father died.
• Reporter Omar Villafrancais correct when he writes, “Santa speaks all languages — even the ones that can’t be heard.” For example, in December of 2010 Santa spoke in American Sign Language to over 150 children who came to see him at the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano, Texas. Mesquite Lawrence Elementary schoolteacher Sarah Schubert said, “This is truly the best thing that happens to our kids all year long. They came up to me this morning and said, ‘You know that Santa can sign with us?’ I mean, they get that!” Santa told Mr. Villafranca, “I sign to them and say, ‘Come up and see Santa Claus,’ and their eyes and their mouths are just open wide and they go, ‘Wow!’ And sometimes they just run and their expression is just, it’s — it’s priceless.” Weston Teel, who is eight years old, asked Santa for a bubblegum machine and a popcorn machine.
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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