Mark and Daddy are still sick but we did the best we could for Christmas.  Mark got lots of gifts but I think the most special of all was his monkey hat and mitts, his Rocketeer Action Hero doll circa 1991 (thank-you eBay) and his Captain Feathersword Wiggles doll (thank-you Amazon.com).  Not easy to find the stuff your kid likes when it is not to be found at Walmart!  You all know about how he loves his GiGi and how that is a one of a kind.  Well seems our son also loves things that are no longer in production.  Maybe he will be a collector or something.  He also loved his CAT digger that makes all the real sounds of a backhoe, his new Bauer skates that I convinced him not to put on in the house and his new movies.  He especially loved "Happy feet" and cracked up when the little penguin chick crackes out of the egg feet first and does his crazy dancing.  He was killing himself laughing but it was more like the out of control, I am so totally sick that I am silly and giddy laugh.  Momma on a lark bought a movie called Winky's Horse and WOW what a great Christmas movie....had Momma in tears as the setting is a little Chinese girl who moves to the Netherlands, where her Dad has opened a Chinese restaurant and their struggle to embrace the Dutch tradition of Christmas on December 5th with the main character being St. Nicholas and Zwarta Piet who are like our traditional Santa but with much more style and presence.  (Google it if you do not believe me!) More believeable and based on a real live saint.  It brought back childhood memories of sitting in our private, Dutch, church supported school and waiting for St. Nicholas and Zwarte Piet to come with gifts of oranges and treats of pepernoten and strooigoed.  Beware!  For the bad boys would be put in a burlap bag and taken away to "foreign" lands...a form of shanghi labour! They wove the movie story around the traditional Dutch Christmas and the little girl Winky's request to St. Nicholas for a horse of her own.  Now that is my kind of Christmas miracle!  Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!  Made my eyes well up in tears as they sang "Look there comes the steamer from far away lands.  It brings us St Nicholas, he's waving his hands.  His horses are prancing on deck up and down. The banners are waving in village and town.  Black Peter is laughing and tells ev'ry one.  The good kids get candy the bad kids get none!"  As I sit here writing this my eyes well up in tears.  Merry Christmas Mom.  I know that where you are, you will still be watching over us this day. Thank-you for all of the memories and the traditions of our family Christmas celebrations that I still hold near and dear to my heart!  How many times did you strive to make every Christmas the best ever.  May our son know the pure joy and love of that kind of Christmas.  The kind of magic that comes not from the gift giving but from the true meaning of Christmas. Merry Christmas to all of the Moms past and present.  We are making their "memberies" and that is a task not to be taken lightly.