the two Kiras and Grandmommy: a Christmas story

I really enjoyed having both Kiras visit me in South Carolina the week after Christmas.  Flat Kira was overjoyed when she looked down from her favorite eucalyptus wreath perch one morning to see Kira Rose eating a bowl of the Cookie Crisp cereal she had helped me buy at the grocery store!

Flat Kira really liked Kira Rose's Christmas presents too.  But Kira Rose needed a crimper, more beads, pendants, and earring wires to go with the collection of beads Aunt Michelle had given her.  And how would she fill her sketch pad with drawings if she didn't have graphite and water color pencils and something to sharpen them with?  So Flat Kira and Kira Rose went shopping with me for even more craft supplies on New Year's Eve.

 Flat Kira is safely in the hands of Kira Rose's mother now, all set for their trip home to Pennsylvania on New Year's Day.  This is the last chapter in a story that I've so enjoyed writing!  Kira Rose, may you always remember, with the help of Flat Kira's saga, the Christmas when you were eight . . .

Love you bunches, my two Kiras!

Happy 2011!!!

Grandmommy

Flat Kira's Christmas morning

at the castle at last!

I'm sittin' in "the castle's" tree!



Santa left some goodies for me!













Uncle Jamie, Cassie, and Michael are
checking out Christmas stockings!





I FINALLY got to meet Michael!





and Cassie let me play with
one of her Disney fairies too!





Cassie offered to paint my fingernails! 

Do I have fingernails, Kira Rose?



'nuff said!

 . . . and 'bout time too!

Flat Kira checks out Tiffany's

Dear Kira Rose,

Sorry I missed writing to you yesterday.  Grandmommy and I have been working hard getting her house ready for your visit.

Yesterday, after shopping again--this time at a real mall--we wrapped even more presents (Kelsey's going to love the one that showed up in the mailbox yesterday!) and then reorganized the closet where all the giftwrap goes.  With all the presents coming in, we had a bunch of big boxes to take apart too.  Grandmommy says we'll be going to the dump before you get here so you won't think her back porch is a dump!

We've vacuumed the downstairs twice today: this morning to get rid of the gift-wrapping leftovers and this afternoon to

 get rid of the styrofoam bits from yet more boxes that we opened!  Aunt Michelle and Uncle Rick stopped by to install some new ceiling lights for Grandmommy.  She says they are Tiffany (-style) lights.  I thought Tiffany's was just the name of a fancy store but I guess not!  Anyway, Grandmommy says she loves her new lights so much that she may never, ever turn them off!

After church tomorrow, we're going to Uncle Jamie's for Christmas breakfast (he's invited everyone in your South Carolina family, but Mason and Campbell are at their dad's until dinnertime so they can't come).  I heard him say something about pancakes and bacon and grits (what's grits???) . . .  Tomorrow afternoon we're going to Aunt Michelle's for Christmas dinner.  Mason and Campbell

picked out the menu: barbecued chicken and mashed potatoes and corn.  Yummy!!!!!!

The yards and driveway are still drifted with leaves (Grandmommy says that I'm learning to be a writer!!!) but we don't care.  It"s Christmas Eve and all is well with the world!

Can't wait to see you guys!!!!

Love you bunches!

Flat Kira

P. S.  Be sure to tell Grandma that those pears she sent us are heavenly!!!!!!  Aunt Michelle took four of them home with her this afternoon for her family :-)

Flat Kira goes shopping



We started our day with Miss Terri,
who washed the gray out of Nonny's hair
and made her look pretty for Christmas. 
That's Nonny in the mirror,  hiding behind her camera!



When Nonny's hair was fixed, we went shopping
all up and down Harbison Boulevard. 
We looked at books and crafts
and clothes and jewelry . . .
and came home with all these bags
stuffed full of presents!

Then we wrapped and wrapped and wrapped some more!
These are Kira Rose's presents from Grandmommy!
I promise not to open them before she gets here . . .
but Kira Rose better HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!!





Flat Kira: hanging out with the cousins

Dear Kira Rose,

I had such a fun day today!!!  Your cousins Mason and Campbell are really cool kids!  They didn't even mind me tagging along or posing for pictures with me so that I could send them to you.

We picked them up at their house, a classy log cabin (but then you already know that), this morning.  They wanted to go shopping at Target.  Mason went his own way, since he had a phone and could call Nonny if he needed to, and I shopped with Campbell and Nonny.  Mason found everything he wanted in no time flat at that one store, but Campbell wanted to see what else was out there.  So we went to Handpicked (shhhh . . ., don't tell Aunt Michelle, and a cool world market kind of place where Campbell found the perfect gift for Uncle Rick.  Aunt Michelle texted Nonny that she would take Campbell shopping for Mason's gift tonight while Mason is attending a party.

We had lunch at Rush's.  Their hot dogs and hot chocolate were perfect for this cold and drizzly day!  Then off to see Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Part 1.  We all cried at a sad part near the end (I don't think you've read this book yet so Nonny says I shouldn't spoil it for you).  We loved the movie though.  Campbell and Mason made Nonny promise she would take them to see part 2 when it comes out!  Maybe I can go with you and your friends?



Nonny let me check out their living room--and, of course, their Christmas tree, when we dropped them off at home.  And then Nonny took me grocery shopping.  I got to sit in the cart. 



Nonny says this is one of your favorite
 cereals.  She now has two boxes of it
waiting for you to have breakfast here!



I think Nonny and I may go shopping by ourselves tomorrow, after she gets her hair done :-)  She wants my opinion on the gifts she's planning to buy for you!

Is everyone at home all ready for Christmas yet?  I miss all of you and can't wait until you are here too!

Love you bunches!

Flat Kira

Flat Kira:chillin' at Grandmommy's

Dear Kira Rose, 

I was hoping to have some big stories to tell you, but Nonny says even the small things in life are worth writing about . . .  So here are a few small things from our last two days together.

Yesterday we did a lot of shopping together--on the computer!  She won't tell me what she's getting for you for Christmas, but I did get to see what she ordered for Kelsey :-)  No, I'm not telling!  I also saw what she ordered for some of the grown-ups.  Why would somebody want a l---?. . . oops, better not say because she'll probably read this letter when she posts it on her blog!

We also put up another Christmas tree, a little one by the breakfast table.  You couldn't even tell it was a table of any kind yesterday!  It was piled up high with catalogs and newspapers and mail!  But today Grandmommy hooked up a machine she calls a shredder.  When she showed me what a shredder does to flat pieces of paper, you can bet I kept myself as far away from it as possible!!!  Anyway, she fed it lots of paper from the piles, and now the table looks like a table again.

After that we hung a wreath in the kitchen window.  I'm sitting here now.  It's the perfect spot for seeing what's going on in the kitchen and even down the hall to the living room! 


Hope I don't fall into that shredder!!!







She did text me a picture
though so that I could
 share it with you.



Grandmommy went for a walk on the Lake Murray dam yesterday and today.  She didn't take me--said it was brrr cold and so windy that I might get blown into the lake and eaten by a fish or one of those turtles that hang out on the rocks there.  That didn't sound like fun to me either, so I just hung out here, listening to music, reading, napping: chillin', I guess. 

Is it winter yet????

Love you bunches!

Flat Kira

P.S. Please tell Grandma that Grandmommy really appreciates the box of fruit from her, sent just in time for Christmas!!!

Flat Kira and the wrestler

Dear Kira Rose,

When I get home to Oakdale, I'll tell you the true story of how I escaped going to middle school yesterday.  It was kind of nice having Grandmommy's house--messy enough to make exploring loads of fun--all to myself.  I played Christmas music all day on her new CD changer.  (Glad she figured out that wiring-speakers-to-a-receiver puzzle Thursday  night!)

I really had meant to sneak back into my envelope when Grandmommy came home to eat, get school stuff out of the car, and presents (to go under Michael and Cassie's tree) in the car.  She was in such a rush that she never noticed I'd fallen asleep on the couch in the study, exhausted from all the mischief I'd been into while she was at work.

I finally got to meet some of your Southern family today--Campbell (not pictured),


Aunt Michelle and Uncle Rick, and



Mason, the wrestler!!!


Anyway, I spent hours and hours today in a high school gym (I wonder if she plans to take me to a college next!)!  Mason was doing this stuff called wrestling.  It looked like fighting to me--the playing around kind of fighting--but kids were getting medals for it!  Mason just missed getting a medal this time but, from all the clapping and cheering everyone was doing, he must have fought pretty well.  He was smiling--not so much in our picture but later in the day.

Did you know that Mason and Campbell call Grandmommy Nonny?  You didn't tell me she has two different names! I heard Grandmommy, aka Nonny, telling Mason and Campbell that she'd be taking them to the movies Tuesday--something about seeing someone named Harry Potter?--and then maybe Christmas shopping.  Wonder if I'll get to go to the movies and shopping with them . . .

She's got that Christmas music going again.  I'm thinking a nap sounds like a good idea!

I'll write more later . . .

Love you bunches!

Flat Kira

Flat Kira"s "lost" day

I was all set to introduce Flat Kira to her "round" cousins, Michael and Cassie, last night when I discovered, to my dismay that she was not safely tucked away in her envelope in the comfort of her handmade Christmas card and directions for handling . . .

Where could she be????

Horror of horrors!  Had I left her at SCHOOL where she would shiver in the dark and silence and winter's chill until January 3????

Kira Rose would never forgive me!!!!!

I did the next best thing . . . logged onto my Simple Pleasures blog and read all the letters and stories about Flat Kira to Michael and Cassie.  They decided that she must be a little bit like Jack, their Christmas elf, and wanted to know more about how she got to my house and especially how she moved around now that she was here.  I told them they'd have to ask Kira Rose when she came to visit after Christmas.  Unlike Jack (and Pixie and Ryder, the elves at Kira Rose's house), I suspect Flat Kira will not disappear when Santa arrives . . . unless I lose her again.

I still don't know the whole story but she was napping with the dolls on the loveseat in the study again when I got home late last night.  I'm really going to have to keep a closer eye on that young lady!!!!

Flat Kira will  be meeting Michael and Cassie soon--on Christmas morning, if not before.  Hope she doesn't climb to the top of their tree!!!!

Flat Kira: Days 3 and 4

Dear Kira Rose,

Grandmommy says we only have one more day of this middle school stuff before we can be truly home (at her home anyway) for the holidays.  YEAH!!!

After watching all those big kids take their exams yesterday (reading and writing and reading and writing and they still had to read and write some more today!), I was exhausted!  Last night, Grandmommy put on a movie that she was planning to show to one of her classes today and tomorrow.  It was about this really stingy old guy named Scrooge who is scared by a bunch of ghosts into changing his ways.  He was still pretty old at the end of the story . . . older than Grandmommy even (and that's old!) . . . but he wasn't a grouch any more.  So I guess those ghosts were good ghosts?

Anyway, I must have fallen asleep on the couch the second the movie was over.  I don't even remember Grandmommy carrying me upstairs and tucking me into bed.  And I didn't get to write to you like I'd hoped  . . .  Did you miss me?

Today was more of that reading and writing exam stuff , though we did get to see the beginning of A Christmas Carol in her last class.  We were just to the good part--the part where Scrooge sees the ghost who's all tied up in clunky chains--when the bell rang for school to be over!  Some of her second block class students brought Grandmommy Christmas presents.  She wouldn't unwrap them but they look like chocolate to me!!!!   YUM!!!

I also got to sit on Grandmommy's lap(top) while she worked on school stuff during lunch (we had granola bars and bananas), something she was writing for the school newsletter about the history of the Christmas card.  Did you know that stamps and Christmas cards were invented at about the same time . . . and actually just a few years after A Christmas Carol (the book, not the movie) was published?  I feel almost  like I've been teleported back to the 1840's the last 24 hours!!!

I think that, after dinner, we may be doing something in the living room with this box she received from FEDEX last night . . . I'll let you know how that goes!

Love you bunches and miss you even more!

Flat Kira

P. S. Do you know what a "receiver" is?

P. P. S.  It's a little bit warmer outside, but now it's raining!  Yuck!!!  Did you get snow today???

Flat Kira-Day 2: middle school immersion . . .

Dear Kira,

     You forgot to mention that your grandmommy would make me go to school during my stay at her house!  Not even elementary school, like good old McKee (miss you guys already!). Middle school!

     Her students are BIG . . . and a little crazy too this week before Christmas break.  A couple of them are hoping I'll be able to help them take her language arts exam tomorrow . . . as if I understand all that stuff about "extended metaphors" and "annotated bibliographies", whatever they are!

     It was pretty fun getting to explore her classroom though.  As you can see, I found



another tree to climb

 


and many, many more books (not many with pictures) to read.

 

    I spent most of my day safely perched beside this bird (she said it was an origami crane and to ask your mom why I make so many of these) on top of her SMARTboard.  Not so sure about SMART.  That board didn't have a thing to say to me all day, and your grandmommy and her students spent most of the day answering all its questions . . .

     She FORGOT to take me to lunch with her!  I understand I missed some awesome meatballs in the teacher's lounge, but the chocolate chip cookies she brought back were pretty good (and you know how I love chocolate chip cookies). 



      After school she did take me to a meeting where I got to sit with a couple of her friends.  They had never heard of Flat Stanley and his travels until I filled them in on his story and why I was in town for a couple of weeks.

     Hope you guys aren't having too much fun without me!

                                                           

                                                            Love you bunches,

                                                            Flat Kira

P. S. Please send me some warmer clothes.  It's brrr cold here!

(away from) Home for the Holidays?

Flat Kira arrived on my (mailbox) doorstep this afternoon, bringing all of that blustery western Pennsylvania chill (minus the white stuff) right along with her.  Brrrr!  But she certainly made herself at home, like she'd always lived here (Kira Rose must have been telling her clone lots of stories about grandmommy's home down south :-)!   




 First she climbed the Christmas tree to check out that ornament Kelsey made for me several years back and to touch (at least one of) the stars (Believe from Heidi of SCRI fame).

  

Then she scoped out one of the stacks of gifts . . .

nothing with her name on it there . . . yet! 

 

Next, time for her first "long winter's nap" and she knew where a doll friend, grateful for the company in that too lonely guest bedroom,  wouldn't mind sharing the use of a comfy bed by a shelf full of books.



 Stay tuned for more of Flat Kira's saga!

epiphany

World English Dictionary, definition 2: epiphany-any moment of great or sudden revelation.

My baby boy--who could not carry a tune until second grade--sang the second solo of his life today . . . and what an epiphany that was for me.  Jamie, a singer--and an accomplished one at that!  Yes!

His first solo was as a second grade.  I was not there . . . but at another school that evening, greeting other parents of children not my own.  Creating a void in my lifetime memory collection.  A void filled to its brim and beyond today!

Collins English Dictionary definition: Epiphany-a Christian festival held on Jan 6, commemorating, in the Western Church, the manifestation of Christ to the Magi and, in the Eastern Church, the baptism of Christ.

How fitting that Jamie's solo today was in the words and the voice of those three wise men . . .

In my lifetime memory collection are images--in color but blurred with time--of the Christmas pageants I religiously recruited (or compelled, if need be) my three younger siblings to present each year for our parents.  We were costumed, of course.  I remember especially the colorful (silk or rayon?) robes my grandmother across the wide Atlantic sent one year, colorful like Joseph's coat, worthy of kings from the Orient.  I remember the songs we sang.  Always opening with "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Did we dare sing Martin Luther's "Away in a Manger"?  "Silent Night," I'm sure . . . and maybe "The First Noel," in honor of our mother because we thought it was French (the minister this morning had a very British explanation of the origin of "Noel"). 

For my mother, I always ended our pageant by singing her favorite" "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  My solo in the days when I could sing. How fitting that this morning's cantata ended with choir and congregation singing the third verse of that hymn, words still engraved on my heart.

And for me, most especially for me, we always sang "We Three Kings"--every verse!

For me, most years since, those wise men had to come to Bethlehem, had to once again experience their epiphany, before the dismantling of Christmas could begin . . . 

NOTE TO SELF: the tree stays up, the Nativity scenes in their places of honor, until January 7, 2011!