Ohai

Mia called from the other room to tell me how good her hot chocolate tasted. I could have been next to her enjoying some tea and her cute mustached face, but I was somewhere between Rushed and Frantic, compiling a year-end montage for the holiday card or tracking down gifts that can still be shipped by Christmas. (Goodbye, dreams of healthy and delicious Florida citrus baskets.)

So it wasn't until she was finished with her drink and moved on to play that I walked by and say the delicious dregs of her cup. Miss H., Mia's first grade teacher, had given the kids packets of "Snowman Soup" as a holiday gift on Friday: hot chocolate mix, a peppermint candy cane for stirring, Hershey's kisses and a cute poem about freezing weather and warming the spirit. Mia had dropped the kisses into the hot drink and now all that was left was some chocolate goo and a peppermint fragment. I grabbed Mia's straw and sucked up the rest, forgetting, perhaps deliberately, her coughs before breakfast this morning.

"I just ate your germs, Mia! But the Snowman Soup was so good!"

I went on like that, licking the straw for the last bits and alternating happy groans at the minty melty goodness with loud complaints that I could feel the congestion in my chest already. Remember when Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son would grab his chest and call out to his dead wife, "I'm coming, Elizabeth!" A hair less dramatic than that, but with added holiday cheer.

Oh, hi. Yeah, I'm back. Had to share that story with you, apropos of nothing but holiday fun and a general Fall Downiness. No promises for much more writing before the new year - it's that crazy time. But I do have a few more Copenhagen stories to share so stay tuned. Love ya lots! Enjoy your holidays. Be safe and happy and well.