Down the Rabbit Hole

Snow Beasts and Christmas Candy Treats

30-Day Unofficial Blogging Challenge
Dec 3 PROMPT
by(557)
Not to pull a Frosty on you or anything, but that snow-person
said you built? It just came alive! *Shock2*
What happens next?


Lola's insistent whining finally pierced the bubble of my spiked eggnog hangover. I sat up too quickly and was rewarded with a jack hammer pain in my right temple. I realized that my days of emblazoned drinking and making merriment with friends were solidly behind me. I thought about calling for Greta but feared the sound of my own voice would betray my tender spirits. Better to not clue my eight year old in on that fact that the party had continued well beyond when she'd been send to bed. I quietly cursed my old friends and slowing swung my feet over the bed and rising up on shaky legs.

I opened the bedroom door to the dog's reproachful eyes.

"Sorry girl", I said, following her flouncing tail down the stairs.

On my way across the kitchen I almost slipped in a puddle of ice cold water. I took another step and my toes once again found an ice puddle. I flicked on the light and saw a series of tiny puddles zigzagging across the kitchen tile.

Greta., I thought. Forgetting about my delicate state, I yelled out to her in the general direction of ceiling. What on earth had she been doing this morning?

My pounded head barked back at me, angrier with my outburst than I could ever have been about the mess.

I reached the slider and let Lola out. She bounded into the snow banks and relieved herself, then proceeded to race about the yard, kicking up the drifts and whirling like a dervish. I watched her mindlessly for a few moments before I noticed something was wrong. The yard looked oddly empty. I rubbed my eyes and peered out again into the snow covered yard.

The snow beast. It was missing. Yesterday afternoon Greta and I had spent hours building the creature, which had started as a standard snowman but had quickly morphed into something that resembled a hunched beast, with a disproportionately bulbous head and bright blue pool noodle arms. We topped it off with a wide orange scarf and mop bucket we found in the back of the garage. Greta had painstaking installed two
garden stones for its eyes, and a piece of red licorice with candy corn teeth for its mouth. In a last ditch nod to tradition, she used a large carrot for the creature's nose. By the time it was done, it had stood nearly two heads taller than her in an old ratty blue and gray wool coat. It had been an oddly impressive effort and now it was gone.

I had the vague recollection of my friends, clutching their cocktails and taking selfies with it in the moonlight. Had one of them knocked it over? I pulled on my boots and trampled out in the yard. There was no evidence it had melted or been stomped on. The coat, scarf and bucket were gone. It was like I had just disappeared. Overnight. I thought briefly about those puddles in the kitchen. Then, ridiculing myself, I went back inside and began to clean up the water. It had to be a prank of some kind. I fired off a text to each of my girlfriends asking who'd taken the snow beast out. I received a flurry of confused responses. I was just reading the last installment when Lola began barking at the slider, it was her alarm bark, punctuated by the sound of her claws frantically dancing across the glass door.

It was then, over Lola's racket, that I thought I heard a low growl.

Greta padded into the kitchen then. "Mom, what the heck is wrong with Lola?"

Greta shouted to the dog and in the brief reprieve of a silenced Lola, that menacing growl came again. My daughter's eyes widened with alarm. We both turned slowly toward the pantry at the rear of the kitchen. One door hung slightly ajar. There in the blackness beyond, we both screamed as we saw something shift in the darkness...

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1813--December 3, 2018
Prompt: Seneca said, “A great fortune is a great slavery.” What might such a great fortune be and do you agree with Seneca’s claim?

I will very likely never know the burden that great wealth and fortune bring. I believe Seneca's quote is referring to how such things can create an obligation to serve them. It often takes a great energy to amass wealth and to uphold it, even more so. While some fortunes come easily, most are the result of hard work and perseverance and ultimately sacrifices. I can see how these things might feel like a great slavery to someone, at least in the consuming way people have to work to keep what they have earned. Given that, I believe many people would forgo a massive fortune if it required them to sacrifice other aspects of life, like falling in love, or raising a family, or pursuing a passion. Life has to be about more than material wealth, or else what is the point of the journey?

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 2206 December 3, 2018
Do you prefer homemade gifts or store bought? Do you exchange food gifts? Clothing? Or Gift cards?

Each holiday season I come to the inevitable feeling that gifts, the commercial kind, ultimately cheapen the spirit of Christmas. Everyone loves presents I know but the bustle and grind of shopping coupled with the anxiety of gift-giving, can sometimes be a real damper. I had opted more and more to give gift cards. Even though they tend to be impersonal, I feel like the thought counts. I want my gifts to ultimately be useful and therefore appreciated. Maybe my gift card means an extra special coffee treat on a day when they could really use it but can't justify the expense? Or, maybe there is something they've been eyeing and my gift card gives them the chance to get it for themselves?

I wish I was a crafty person because there is also something really appealing about homemade gifts. I like it when someone makes me something, there just feels like there in more sentiment behind a present someone makes with their own two hands. I am planning to make some homemade Christmas candies with my daughter this year. Our plan is to distribute them to some of our neighbors in our new neighborhood. I think it will help with the whole "season of giving" sentiments that sometimes I fear the holidays can lack. I want Christmas to be a time of family and charity for my daughter. When she finally outgrows Santa and the Elf of the Shelf, I want her to see that the real magic of Christmas is about believing in those values and spreading them out into the world.