Magical Reindeer Food Really Does Exist!

Down the street from our house lives Mr. Tinker. He is an older man and he has trouble getting around. Trenton and Doyle my sons help him with small jobs around his house. Just little tasks, like taking the trash to the road or raking up fall leaves. They have formed a good friendship with each other. In fact, Mr. Tinker often invites the boys to come over to sit on his porch just to talk.

While we were writing our Christmas letters the boys told me that they were worried about how Mr. Tinker would be spending his Christmas. He had no family that either of them had ever heard of or seen. The boys decided that they would ask Santa to bring something special for Mr. Tinker that year.

Doyle and Trenton couldn’t wait to mail a letter to Santa. They just knew for sure that Santa would bring something to make Mr. Tinker’s Christmas a little brighter. I was glad to see the boys showing so much compassion for Mr. Tinker. It was good for him to have them stop by and give him company.

I told the boys that I would take them shopping to buy a gift for Mr. Tinker. Trenton picked out a thick flannel coat. He chose blue because Mr. Tinker had once told him it was his favorite color. Doyle wanted to buy a pair of warm house shoes and gloves. He said Mr. Tinker always complained of having cold hands and feet.

That week a snow storm blew in over a foot of snow. We walked down to see if Mr. Tinker needed us to get him anything while we were out in the truck. He handed me a list and the money, he told me to keep the change for my trouble. Mr. tinker than turned to the boys and told them to close their eyes and hold out their hands.

In each of their hands he placed a small cloth bag. When they opened their eyes they didn’t know what to think. Mr. Tinker grinned and explained that inside the bags was magical reindeer food for them to leave out Christmas Eve. They showed off their gifts to their dad that night at dinner.

On Christmas Eve the boys went out in the backyard to put out the reindeer food. I gave them a big plastic green bowl with pictures of snowmen on it to put the food in. They took their time trying to decide what would be the best place to leave food for Santa’s pets. On Christmas morning they couldn’t wait to see if the reindeer ate any of the food that Mr. Tinker had given them. To their surprise the bowl was completely empty and there were deer tracks in the snow across the yard.

Christmas Lights Add A Magical Touch To The Season

My little granddaughter gets so excited about driving around and looking at Christmas lights every year. The tradition started when she was just a baby. On a very fussy night when my husband and I were keeping her so her mother could do some Christmas shopping we decided we would try a car ride to calm her down. She didn’t fall asleep on the ride but she did fall in love with the glow of Christmas lights. I can still remember her stretching as far as she could in her car seat to watch the lights twinkle. To this day that is her favorite Christmas activity.

With that in mind, when my granddaughter was three she woke up one morning to find a gift from Santa on the front porch. She made movements in blurs as she quickly unwrapped the present. To her delight it was boxes of outdoor Christmas lights. I was sure if we all worked hard she would be able to see the lights lit up by nightfall. We spent the day hanging her Christmas lights. My husband made a quick trip to the hardware store and returned with a plastic light up Santa Claus.

Every year some sort of outdoor decorations are sent from Santa to my granddaughter’s family. She has come to check the porch first thing every morning starting the day after Thanksgiving. Over the years as the collection has grown so has the glow from my granddaughter’s home. When she was still small she would cry when Christmas was over and we had to take down the lights. We told her that it is bad luck to have your Christmas lights up after New Year’s.

One of my all time favorite letters to Santa came from my little granddaughter. She wanted to have a big house covered in lights when she became a grown up. She went on to give a detailed list of things she wanted have display on the front lawn. She thought that a merry go round would look perfect in the driveway. She still thinks the merry go round is a great idea. After the lights are up she can’t wait to mail a letter to Santa to thank him.

Sally is now ten years old. There are times when I am informed by her that she is now too big to do certain things like hold my hand in public. I was happy this year when she said that she was going outside to check on the food for the reindeer.  I watched out the window as she carried out the big silver bowl of food. She sat the food on the ground and sat down on the bench. She was smiling as she looked around at the lights. I couldn’t help but smile. Watching my grandchildren do the things that their parents did as they grew up is truly a blessing. Children are what make my holidays special.