Ryan Rewind: Glad to be a Grad (but Grandma is a little sad).

The spirit of Christmas, passed

Sweet, and a little heartbreaking. Two of my four grandkids are young women now, and the other two are racing each other towards puberty. Sad? I don't know, I guess it's just "real", and that's better than fake, isn't it? Merry Christmas, kids.

Hey Caitlin!

No sooner did she turn 14 than Caitlin suddenly turned radio host! Mom (my illustrious daughter Shannon) took her to work today, and I must say she looks good with those headphones on. Hosting can't be far away.

In other news, Caitlin looks happy with her hand-knitted birthday present from Grandma, who never thought she'd still be knitting blankies at this stage. Sixteen balls of wool, a few weeks with the needles and a few dollars spent at Michaels, but I must say it all turned out well.

NEWS FLASH! 

More of Caitlin the journalist, learning camera techniques from a CTV technician. She also appeared for a nanosecond in a story her mother did, but I can't post that one unless it pops up on YouTube. Stay tuned!

                 And here she is in her Halloween costume.

A spooky little girl like you: happy birthday, Caitlin!

Minions 'n Mermaids: must be Christmas!

Since all four grandkids already had everything they wanted in electronics, games, etc., I was left to try to figure out what else I could give them.

But then. . . it came to me. I knew they didn't have these. . . 

MINIONS! I mean hand-knitted, personalized Minions. Four of them. I thought of this idea about ten days before Christmas, so was in Minion hell for a while, just cranking them out. These guys appeared in the toe of each kid's stocking and were probably better-received by the adults than the kids. I don't know Minions from the bottom of my shoe, and thus was working from a very chintzy photo of a knitted Minion. (Not nearly as nice as mine.) I ended up going back to the original images from the movie. "Which Minion is this?" one of the grandkids asked. Which Minion? You mean they have names?

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. . . 

Mermaid tails!! These were knitted like small sleeping bags and were a hit, thank God, because I wasn't at all sure that: a) they'd know what they were, or b) they'd want anything to do with them. Preteens blow hot and cold. But they took to these and soon were hopping around in them as if in a very strange mermaid sack race. Caitlin has grown so rapidly that I really could've added another 4 inches to hers. From a very petite little girl, she's suddenly (overnight, it seems) as tall as many adults and will soon be looking down on her mother. Ahem. The happy-faces may look strange, but my daughter-in-law prefers not to have her kids' faces on a blog, and I understand completely. Suffice it to say their own faces are a lot prettier. 

Caitlin surrounded by her loot, or some of it, or at least the packaging it came in.  I gave her a makeup kit this year. Yikes.

My lovely daughter Shannon with her nutcracker, Boris. Took a long time to get him to stand on her shoulder like that.

Minions!!

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Wendy and the Ice Monsters

Wendy and the Ice Monsters (a Grandma tale)

Chapter One: WHERE’S SANTA?

Once there was an eight-year-old girl with red hair and lots of freckles. Her name was Wendy, and she was very independent and liked to have her own way. She didn’t care what the other kids thought of her, even if they called her names like Carrot Hair or Orange Crush or Wednesday.

One night Wendy was trying to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep because it was Christmas Eve, and who can sleep on Christmas Eve?! She wanted to stay awake so she could see Santa bringing presents for everyone.

So she decided to stay awake, but Santa didn’t come, and Wendy was very ticked off. It seemed like hours were going by. “Ill bet Santa will never come,” she said.

But just then. . .
CRASH!

WENDY FELL THROUGH 

THE FLOOR!

She fell and fell. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell!

“Help!” screamed Wendy. “I’m falling!”

Then suddenly. . .

She fell some more. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell.

“Rats,” said Wednesday. She was getting used to falling by now, and wasn’t afraid. Well, she was a little bit afraid.

She thought she might land on a rock or go THUD on the ice. But when she finally landed, she felt light as a feather. But she didn’t land on feathers. It was frost, like you see on the tree branches and leaves in the winter.

“Yikes! This is cold on the bum!” yelled Wendy.

It was very very dark and cold.  She didn’t know where she was. Some kind of ice cave? Talk about scary! Wendy was a brave girl. Most of the time. But this time she wasn’t too sure.

“I want my Mummy,” she said, and began to cry.

POOF!

Chapter Two: Hello, Frost Man!

Something or someone appeared in front of her. He was nine feet tall and BLUE! He was all covered with blue and silver frost.

“You look cool!” said Wendy.

“Thank you, little girl. I am cool. I have to be, or I would melt. By the way, who are you?”

“Who am I?” Wendy cried. “Who am I?? I’m normal! I’m a little girl. You’re the monster, aren’t you?”

When she said this, Frost man began to cry. She had hurt his feelings. Wendy suddenly felt very bad about what she had called him.

As he cried, water ran down his face.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Frost Man. You’d better stop crying, or you’ll melt,” Wendy said.

“But I’m frightened.”

“Of me?”

“No. You’re not as brave as you say you are, or you wouldn’t make fun of other people.” Wendy felt embarrassed, because he was telling the truth.

“So who are you frightened of?”

“I’m afraid of the Ice Monsters. I can see their shadows moving around in the distance.”

(Oh no, it gets worse, Wendy thought to herself.)

“Listen, Frost Man, I don’t know who or what you are, but I like you. I’ll help you beat those Ice Monsters. We’ll do it together. As a team.”

Frost Man gave her a quavery smile. He really wasn’t sure a little girl could help him with something as scary and powerful as the Ice Monsters. But he was glad to have a friend. There weren’t too many Frost People around in this strange hidden world.
Then, all of a sudden –

BLAM!!

Everything exploded into ice cubes! Wendy was amazed to see that everything around her was made of ice crystals.

“Is this Ice Land?” Wendy asked. She had heard about it in geography. It was a country that sounded very cold.

“No. It’s the Land of the Ice Monsters.”

“So where did all the other Frost People go?”

“They’re hiding. When the ice explodes like that, it means. . . THEY’RE COMING!”

“OK then!” Wendy had made her mind up. “Let’s go

deal with those monsters!”

They made their way through chunks and hunks of ice. Wendy couldn’t see any Ice Monsters. The place seemed deserted. Then. . . What was THAT??

Something was appearing in the mist. It looked like an ice cloud. Then it got bigger and bigger!

It was an ICE MONSTER!

Chapter Three: The Land of the Ice Monsters

“Aeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh,” screamed Frost Man. He started to run away. “Don’t you dare run away,” said Wendy. “You must confront your fears.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can’t run away.”

“Oh.”

The Ice Monster looked terrible. He looked worse than anything Wendy had ever seen. He had awful eyes. He had awful hair, like big splinters of ice sticking out of his head.  He looked like the Abdominal Snow Man, or Bigfoot with white fur, only a lot meaner. He looked ten feet tall!

“I know how to deal with this guy,” Wendy said.

“HOW??”

“He’s an Ice Monster, isn’t he? We can melt him.”

Frost Man looked doubtful.

“There’s no electricity down here. We don’t have any blow driers or anything like that.”

Wendy thought and thought. She had no idea how to melt the Ice Monster. But it got worse! Just then she saw another TEN Ice Monsters coming up behind him! They looked awful! They looked scary!

YUCK!!

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Wendy and the Frost Man.

But then she had an idea. “It’s Christmas Eve, a magic time. Maybe that will give me magic powers!

The Frost Man looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“No. But do you have any other ideas?”

“Uh, no. Let’s go for the magic powers.”

She pointed her finger at the Ice Monster. “ZAP-A-DOODLE!” she screamed. A lightning bolt shot out of the end of her finger and hit the Ice Monster!

“Ow,” he said.

“He’s melting!” cried Frost Man..

“Zap!” yelled Wendy. “Zap-a-doodle-doo!”

Chapter Four: VICTORY!

Bolts of lightning were flying everywhere! All the Ice Monsters began to melt like icing on a hot day.

The Ice Monster began to turn into slush as he screamed and ran away. “He turned out to be a big coward,” Frost Man said in surprise.

“We won, we won!” said Wendy. “He’s just a puddle now.”

 “Yay,” said Frost Man.

“But wait a minute. It’s Christmas Eve! I’m supposed to be in my bed, waiting for Santa.”

Frost Man looked at her. “Remember, this is a magic night.”

“It is?” Wendy wondered if she had used up all her magic zapping the Ice Monster.

“Of course it is.”

ZAP-ZAP-ZAZZLE!

All at once, the dark ice cave vanished, and Wendy was miraculously back in her bed.

“Wow!” she said. “It’s so good to be home. Nobody’s going to believe what happened to me.” Then she thought of something. “But I miss Frost Man. He was such a good friend to me.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Even if he comes back, how am I going to be friends with a person who has to stay frozen all the time? I wonder if I can keep him in the freezer.” She was very discouraged.

Then she heard a sound outside her window. A sort of sparkly, tinkly sound like ice crystals hitting a pane of glass.

Slowly a pattern formed on her window. It was a face! A face made of frost and starlight. And not just any face, but one she knew very well.

“It’s you! I knew you’d come back.”

“Merry Christmas, Wendy.”

“Merry Christmas, Frost Man. Well, it’s not quite Christmas yet. So Merry Christmas Eve. How did you get here?”

“This is a magic night, remember? So here I am.  Every Christmas Eve, just look out your window and make a wish, and I’ll be there.”
POOF! The Frost Man disappeared, as Wendy watched in wonder.

When Wendy woke up the next day, she shook her head. “I’ve never had a dream like that before. It was a doozy.” Then she noticed a strange sort of pattern on the window.

The sun was shining through it and it was all glittering blue and silver, almost like diamonds.

“Pretty,” she said, and ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought her.

THE END

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

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