Seven Chocolate Santas

[gerisullivan]

One of my Christmas traditions is the chocolate Santa sticking out of the top of my sock. I still have my childhood sock, though it's been 40 years or more since I could fit my own foot into it. Red cotton, with jingle bells, and my name embroidered on it. Two names actually: the "Mary Beth" I was named at birth, in my mother's handwriting, and "Geri," which I adopted as a teen, in my sister's handwriting. She surprised me by putting it on the other side of the sock one year, after it was clear that the "Geri" was sticking. Sweet.

So, anyway, back to the chocolate Santa. This year, there's a steadily growing pile of moving boxes in the corner where the tree normally stands. The location was minnehaha K's idea, and a fitting one indeed. My sock is still in one of the many boxes of ornaments and decorations that I'm hoping to sort quickly through sometime in the next 20 hours. I've been listening to Christmas music as I work and pack, and plugged the lighted gingerbread boy in a few weeks ago. Cards decorate the otherwise bare upper shelves of the dining room buffet, but that's pretty much the extent of my attention to Christmas this year.

Until Wednesday afternoon, when I was running a few packing-related errands, and stopped by Byerly's for some perishables. While there, I prowled the shelves of Wood's chocolate shop for a chocolate Santa, kind of wondering why I was doing so. Even the good quality molded chocolate figures tend to go uneaten these days; I think there's still a bunny in the fridge. But, still, I was looking. Needing perhaps to have some little piece of Christmas tradition even as I pass on most of the holiday pleasures this year.

No luck. "Have I waited too long to get a chocolate Santa?" I asked the clerk. Indeed I had, unless the little miniature, foil-wrapped ones would do. Well, *that* appealed to my sense of the perverse. The chocolate shop clerk pawed through a basked of foil-wrapped Christmas balls, finding all of the remaining Santas, asking how many I wanted as she found another, and another....

I ended up taking them all, leaving none for any other last-minute shoppers in need of a chocolate Santa, any chocolate Santa. Which is how it is there will be seven chocolate Santas awaiting my waking on Christmas Morning.

More packing awaits, with a few festivities of the day to be indulged in for good measure.

I wish all who celebrate the holiday much joy and delight in the day.

Comments

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I suggest you name them Viisas, Jörö, Lystikäs, Unelias, Ujo, Nuhanenä, and Vilkas. That's the Seven Dwarfs in Finnish. Merry Christmas.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It's very hard to be a parent and try to figure out the right name for someone else. I'm glad you managed to figure out that your name was Geri.

Merry Christmas, I hope the Santas are delicious and the rest of the packing goes smoothly.