The Reindeer Keeper

Along with the Christmas ornaments my parents bought at what was once a Woolworths store in what was once a downtown, and along with an old, tattered elf dressed in now a faded green-one of my father's favorite elves-I've again gathered all the Santas big and small that were brought out to celebrate Christmas. A few, like the ones hand painted over fifty years ago and the tiny ones bought at a Britts Dept. Store when I was the Ad Manager, and the ones still intact but a little ripped, part of a paper chain and those bought at craft shows over the years all hung on the tree. Some of the Santas on display about the house I'd discovered in a magical shed full of Christmas wreaths and one-of-a-kind, handmade decorations and centerpieces out on a back country road-the very same place we've gone to for years in search of the perfect Christmas tree. One of those precious Santas came with its own wicker sled with its own wooden reindeer and miniature toys. The other one is made...

 Well here we are again. It's that time of year when three major holidays come at us one right after another. And the decorating has begun. With Halloween behind us we are heading toward Thanksgiving. We can put away the witches and ghosts but keep the pumpkins and gourds on display. The cornstalks too. And then after Thanksgiving, put the pumpkins and gourds away. Throw out the cornstalks and get on with decorating for Christmas. Some people keep their outside lights in place all year long. Some use Thanksgiving as their marker to put their outside lights back up. We all do it differently.  Some decorate for Halloween. Leave those decorations in place and add their Thanksgiving decorations to the mix. Then top all of those decorations off with Christmas decorations. It's fun to drive around and see what others have done. I've come to enjoy seeing witches next to Pilgrims and Santa Claus with his reindeer. But I'm one who needs space between the three holidays. I need t...

I always felt like a famous artist when working on a Paint-By-Number Painting. I loved them. They came in a kit inside a decorated cardboard box. The kit contained everything one would need to complete the painting. Some kits included one large paint-by-number painting. Others included three paint-by-number paintings, smaller in size than the kit with the single painting. I can still remember my most favorite of all the ones I painted. It was a horse standing in front of a barn-a rather big horse. I spent hours on that painting, sitting at my desk in a bedroom I shared with my younger sister with a huge assortment of brushes, a glass of water and lots of tissues sitting next to me. I always made a mess when creating. That's just what artists do. Going shopping for new paint-by-number kits was great fun. Woolworths and Newberry's always had great selections. Sometimes my cousin and I would go downtown shopping and sometimes I'd come back home with gift ideas to tell my m...

Right about this time of the year when growing up out in the country, I’d be looking for my bag of marbles. It wasn’t a fancy bag. It was a paper bag and there weren’t that many marbles in it. My older brother was the one with the marbles. He kept them in a plush-like bag with ties you’d pull shut so the marbles wouldn’t fall out. Sometimes when he wasn’t home I’d sneak into his room, pull open a certain dresser drawer and grab hold of that plush-like bag. Then I’d sit on his bed. Open the bag and spread the marbles out in front of me. One time a marble rolled off his bed and disappeared just as I heard him come through the front door. I panicked. I scooped up the marbles and dumped them in the fancy bag. Then I got down on my knees and searched for the one that got away. I couldn’t find it! I was running out of time so I put the plush-like bag back in the drawer and hurried to my room and shut the door. I waited for him to start yelling at me. I was convinced he’d find it. But tha...

I loved paper dolls. I had a shoebox full of them. I kept the shoebox in the bottom drawer of an old dresser in my bedroom. Sometimes I'd sit on the floor and play out scenarios with them. I named each one of them.They were like little friends to me. None were licensed characters. None came with sparkly outfits. They were just paper dolls. And that was all I needed. Most of my paper dolls came from Newberry's or Woolworths. It was always fun when shopping for paper dolls. Of course, Santa Claus made sure to bring me even more. It was exciting when deciding which outfit each of my paper dolls would be wearing. Sometimes they'd have to change more than once during a scenario depending on what they were doing. They always had lots of fun whether going to the beach or school, on a picnic or visiting friends or taking care of their puppies or kittens. Whatever they were doing, they were fashionably dressed for the occasion. One evening, like many other evenings, I had my ...

I remember the evening my parents walked into our house situated on a lane with their arms full of bags and boxes; some wrapped and decorated with curly ribbon. They’d been downtown Christmas shopping. They’d been gone a long time. While our father took the babysitter home, our mother told my brother and me to go upstairs and get our pajamas on; then come back down and stay in the living room while she put things away. I watched her put one box on the dining room table as I hurried up the front stairs. When our father returned, we were told to sit by the tree in the living room. I could hear them whispering in the dining room. Then in they walked with my mother carrying that box she’d placed on the dining room table. Sitting in a chair by the tree my mother handed the box to my father. I can see him standing there still wearing a tie. He was always wearing a tie. Sometimes he’d be wearing a tie as he strung the tree with strands of blue lights. My father loved those blue lights....

When recently walking down a certain aisle of a discount store, I found myself drawn to all the school supplies filling the shelves. Signs shouting special pricing-great deals-hurry while supplies last-were everywhere as were children with parents obviously immersed in Back to School shopping. And there I was-still infatuated by all those products just as I used to be when I was the one taken to the store to shop for Back to School. When it was me, it was never the clothes or shoes that interested me. It was always the pencils-the erasers and glue and paper and scissors and notepads and folders. All those aromas of all those things coming together was exciting to me. Besides going back to school, it meant spending even more time at my desk in my bedroom-writing-drawing-creating whenever I could. Back then there were no official discount stores. We had a Newberry's and a Woolworths. They sat side by side in our downtown. Everyone would go from one to the other when doing Ba...

Every Christmas a big, smiling, plastic Santa Claus sitting in his sleigh with his reindeer hitched up and ready to go hung above the intersection of the two main streets of the downtown where I grew up. When the wind blew really hard off the river the sleigh appeared as if it was in flight. And when it was snowing many of the shoppers in a hurry slowed down to catch a glimpse of the jolly old man waving at them through the snowflakes. Looking back I believe what mattered to those rushing by was the fact that Santa and his sleigh were right where they had been for as long as most could remember. That Santa and that sleigh and those reindeer were a holiday tradition in the community. I loved going Christmas shopping downtown. My aunt would take my cousins and me on a Saturday. We'd spend the day-having lunch at a favorite spot of all the locals. It had plastic tablecloths and big glasses of chocolate milk. Conversations were friendly. Everyone knew everyone. Families caught up w...