On this past Christmas Eve, Daughter Dear said to me: "I have something for you, but you need to go outside for a while,"
"Great, I'll take your dog for a walk. It will be like my first and best Christmas ever."
That First Christmas that I remember happened long ago when I was perhaps three years old-- before my dad went away to the war. My mother, father, and I lived with my grandmother, and they told their only child (me) that since we didn't have a fireplace, Santa would come in through the door. However, he wouldn't come in when a child was present. So, Daddy would take me for a walk while mother and grandmother hid.
I remember walking down the street, listening with eagle ears. "I heard him," I'd say, "Listen, Daddy."
Oh my, when we returned to the house, the tree was lighted, with toys encircling it like Santa's workshop. The trees' lights were all a glitter against silver tinsel icicles, and there was a tricycle.
Magic exploded abundantly that year.
And this one!
On this Christmas Eve, as Lafayette, daughter's coon hound, and I walked to the end of the street, I listened carefully, but I didn't hear bells jingling or Ho ho hos ringing through the night air.
However, when I entered the house, oh my, a life-size lighted pink flamingo was standing on the coffee table.
I was astounded and overjoyed. Daughter Dear had made it out of chicken wire, sprayed it white, and lighted it with pink bulbs she had ordered.
This was a lesson on asking and receiving.
It's a long story that I'll shorten.
I had said I wanted a lighted pink flamingo to put in the yard. I thought of making one but didn't have the energy or inclination. I wondered, too, if pink bulbs were available for Christmas lights. Other people had deer, horses, carriages, and sleighs, but I never saw a lighted pink flamingo. I shelved the idea and didn't put any more effort into wishing for one.
With three jobs, I don't know where Daughter Dear found the time to build a Flamingo, but she said it was easy. "I'll give it a try," she said and gathered up a table leg and some chicken wire we had on the property, plus a flower pot frame for the body, ordered the white light string and pink bulbs, and viola’ a pink flamingo.
We both slapped ourselves on the side of the head, "Sometimes it doesn't have to be hard."
A few years ago, my daughter and I called ourselves The Pink Flamingos. We will again when Daughter Dear has her own Real Estate Agency, and I will be an agent. I never understood the phenomenon of plastic pink flamingos in a yard. Still, I thought they were funny and pertinent to houses. Four years ago, when we signed, as fledgling Real Estate Agents to an agency, we couldn't use the name The Pink Flamingos—when Daughter Dear starts her own agency, we can.
After taking a break from my Real Estate Studies, (my license lapsed, and I'm back to square one, with 69 study hours out of 150 completed), I began a new project.
Here it is:
