A Christmas Horse

816 words

So as i was looking through some older documents on my computer, i ran across something that i had written when i was younger. I used to love, love, love horses and for a few years i kept hoping that i would get one for Christmas. I never did. But a few years ago i wrote a story called Christmas Horse and i thought that I'd like to share it with you all!

I’ve been wanting a horse for Christmas for as long as I can remember. And of course, I never got one; until last year.

 

        Last Christmas was the best one yet. I was 12 years old and my parents had told me their Santa “secret.” I believed them until Christmas morning.

        A few weeks earlier, I visited Santa Claus for the last time. He asked me the usual, you know, “What would you like for Christmas?” and I answered him,

        This is most likely my last year talking to you, so I will tell you my dream I’ve had since before I remember.” I paused, seeing what Santa would do. Then I continued,” I want a dazzling black horse: white blaze and white socks on all four feet.”

        “I’ll see what I can do,” Santa said.

        “Thank you,” I said. I took the candy cane he offered me.

        On the ride home, my mom told me.

        “Jenny,” she said, “I don’t want to tell you this, but there is no Santa Claus.” She paused, and then spoke again. “We, your dad and I, we are Santa Claus.”

        I sat there, stunned. “So I just told my number one wish to a complete FAKE?”

        “I’m afraid so,” my mom said.

        “Thanks a lot mom,” I yelled, “you just ruined Christmas! You- you- you Christmas-joy ruiner!” I stormed out of the car and into the house. I ran into my room and slammed the door behind me. That night, I cried myself to sleep.

 

        Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Now that I know that there is no Santa, I know I will never get my dazzling black horse. Mom and dad will never get me a horse for Christmas, and they’re too expensive to pay with my money. My Christmas has just been ruined.

 

* * *

Today is Christmas Eve and I’m not as excited as I usually am. It’s probably my mom’s story about her being Santa Claus. Unfortunately, I believe her. Christmas just isn’t the same without Santa.

 

        It’s Christmas morning and yeah, I’m happy, but not as much as I usually am. I will not be getting a horse for Christmas, ever.

        As we go down to open our presents, I notice an awkward shaped gift under the tree. It says it’s from Santa, but I just roll my eyes and began to unwrap it. I gasp. It is a shiny new saddle! Mom probably just thought that I could use it in my lessons. The next gift was a bridle. Something was really weird here. The next gifts were a girth, helmet, and grooming kit. Finally I said something.      

        “Mom, dad, what is all this?” I said seriously.

        “We didn’t get you any of this,” my dad said, "it must have been Santa!"

        “Yeah, right. Come on, just admit it.”

       

        Something moved outside. I went to see what it was. When I opened the door, I realized what all the strange presents were for. Standing in the white snow, was the most gorgeous, dazzling black horse I had ever seen. His halter was the brightest yellow and on his nose was the whitest blaze I had ever. His feet were tipped in white.

        Without shoes, I ran out into the snow to my new beloved horse.

        “Mom, dad? Did you do all this?” I was still awe struck.

        My parents just stood there smiling at me, the joy on my face was reflected in theirs. 

        “What will you call him?” my dad asked.

        I had that all that planned in my head. “Jingle Bell Rock,” I said hugging my new horse.

 

 

* * *

That Christmas was the best one I ever had.

 

Probably one of the corniest Christmas stories you have ever read and back then my writing wasn't up to par yet but I still love the story. I love it because it shows my angle on Santa Claus. No I don't believe that one man goes to every house in the world in one night and puts presents under their Christmas trees but i do believe in the magic of Christmas. I believe in Christmas miracles and maybe there is someone putting that little voice into parents' heads saying it's okay, go ahead and get that for you child. It IS Christmas after all!

 

I think I'll leave you with that. I won't be back until after the new year so until then,

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

~Skooogster(:

Snow Daze

300 words

So the whole state of Iowa is in the middle of a blizzard and school was cancelled at 7:00 last night. At first I thought that they were just overreacting and that we would wake up to maybe only an inch of snow at the most. Well, I am happy to say this snow day wasn't for nothing. When I woke up, this is what I saw outside my window:

 

A WINTER WONDERLAND!!!!!!!! I am the type of person that can't get into the Christmas spirit without snow. When I woke up, I started singing Christmas songs and was in the mood for Christmas movies and decorating cookies. But a lot of times I get really bored on snow days and don’t know what to do! So here are some tips that I came up with for making your snow day a bit more fun :)

 

1.      Go sledding with some friends. If there is enough snow (which there better be because school was cancelled) get some friends together and find a good hill to go sledding on.

2.      Make cookies or brownies. There’s nothing like a fresh out of the oven brownie on a cold winter day! Me and my sister decorated cookies and we had a British invasion theme:

 

plus a cat and snowman

 

 

3.      Make some hot cocoa and snuggle up next to the fire and watch your favorite movie

4.      Make a snowman family. Have a contest with your friends to see who can make the most creative snowman.

5.      Have a snowball fight

6.      Or, here’s my favorite, SLEEP! Catch up on some zzzz’s that you haven’t gotten because of school.

So I know those are kind of basic but if you’re looking for something fun to do, I hope this helps you some :)

~Skooogster(:

Dear Little Audrey...

491 words

If I could go back in time, I would. As a sixteen year old, I know so many more life lessons than I did when I was in middle school and I seriously wish I could at least go and be my own conscience so I don’t make the mistakes I did.

 

The first thing I would tell myself is not to worry about what people thought of you. I used to worry about that so much and I still do but at least now I know it isn’t worth it. I wish I could tell myself that I will have amazing friends in the future and that they will love me no matter how I look. And I’m sure that would help the fact that I still feel insecure.

 

Second, I would want to warn little Audrey not to over-do her schedule. Right now I am chin high with homework and reading for my three AP classes and I don’t ge3t enough sleep. So sophomore year when teachers tell you that you can get out of Gov. 1 and 2 by taking AP US Gov., DON’T DO IT! You will just push yourself to the brink of insanity!

 

I would also tell little me that it really doesn’t matter that you are awkward around guys and suddenly become that socially awkward girl when you are around them. Because if they are into you, they will completely over look your awkwardness. So next time, little Audrey, that you are hanging out with a guy and you really want to give him a hug but your awkward side kicks in and for the weirdest reason unknown to you, you give him a high five instead, shake it off. Life goes on. And if that really bothered him, then it’s his loss, not yours

 

Also, I would tell myself to join marching band my freshman year. I don’t even know how many times I wish I could go back and change that. Next year is my last year marching and it makes me so sad that I will graduate with only three years of marching. It is seriously the best thing you could ever do, little Audrey.

 

And a few other little side notes: Baby Audrey, don’t take AP Euro. It may seem fun but seeing that you will end up dropping, just start with regular world history. You don’t even know how much stress that will save! Junior year when you are practicing with varsity on August 16 be sure to watch what is going on everywhere or make up an excuse to sit out when you are playing crossfire otherwise you will get a bad concussion that just makes everything ten times more difficult.  

 

Little Audrey, don’t let anyone else decide for you, what your life is going to be. You are your own person, not someone else’s puppet. Be who you want to be and you should be just fine:)

~Skooogster(:

Outrageous Christmas Lights

384 words

In an earlier blog I talked about Christmas traditions that my family has. A fun thing that we sometimes do is to drive around and look at Christmas lights. When I was younger, we would drive through neighborhoods and look at lights on houses or through parks that had special light displays. It didn't take much to catch the attention of me and my sister. Anything shiny, sparkly, blinking, or lit up in general would put us in the Christmas spirit.

For a few years, we didn't exactly hunt for lights, but just noticed the ones that we passed day to day. We started to spot some of the decorating trends that are going around in Christmas decor. Like Santa in an inflatable helicopter. What’s with that? And blue lights. I’m not talking about light blue icicle type blue lights. No, I mean the hurt your eyes alien glow blue lights that some people cover their house with.

Last year we decided to go on a hunt for the tackiest, most awkward, and strange ways people decorate for the holiday season. And I have to say, we were quite successful. One house had a lit up reindeer hanging suspiciously from a tree branch (not exactly sure what the family wanted to tell us). Another house must not enjoy the snow because they always set up a lit up palm tree next to their house. Trying to get some extra tanning in? Some are so interesting that we have to stop in front of it for a few minutes just taking in the scene. And I’m not completely sure of the conversation my family had but I know it had something to do with the home owner coming out of his house with a gun to tell us to shoo! (It was kind of a sketchy looking house, despite the Christmas lights). Sometimes people who feel obligated to decorate but don’t want to put a lot of time into it try to get away with only using one string of lights by stretching it from a tree to the house.

I guess what we have discovered is that everyone has a different way of showing their holiday spirit. And to those who go all out, thank you for having interesting and memorable houses during Christmas!   

~Skooosger(:

How Dancees Should Be/ Mini Dance Marathon

357 words

On Friday my school had a Mini Dance Marathon from 9-12 pm along with some kids from the University of Iowa and I have to say it was one of the best dances I had ever been to.

There weren’t a whole lot of people there but there was enough to make it worth staying all three hours.  At around ten o’clock one of our French teachers did Zumba with us. After that I think it’s fair to say, my feet are bruised and my muscles are screaming!

But having fun with friends and Zumba wasn’t the best part for me. What I loved was there was no grinding, inappropriate dancing, no one got kicked out, and everyone was just going crazy, dancing, jumping up and down and having a good time. In my opinion, that is what school dances should be like. We are there to have a good time, and in this case, help raise money for kids with cancer. Friday night was just three hours of a handful of students getting together and having a good time. One of my friends actually said that he was going to leave half way through but when I was talking to him later he said that he was glad that he stayed the whole time. If more people could see how fun Friday was, maybe Homecoming and other dances could be different.

At regular school dances the majority of the dance floor is taken up by people grinding all over each other. That’s not what I like to see. I like seeing people smiling, laughing, singing at the top of their lungs, jumping up and down and showing off those ridiculous dance moves you probably wouldn’t show anywhere else.

I’m going to ask you guys something. Next time you go to a school dance, maybe try to just have fun and go wild for once and see the difference it makes. If you don’t like it, that’s your opinion and I can’t change that for you but is it too much to ask you to try?

I think you’ll be surprised at how much fun you’ll have.

 

~Skooogster(:

HOW TO STALK SOMEONE

485 words

 

WARNING: THIS POST IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY! PLEASE DO NOT TRY ANY OF THE STUFF I AM WRITING ABOUT TODAY, I AM NOT BEING SERIOUS. IF YOU CHOOSE TO FOLLOW MY STEPS BELOW, YOU MAY BE A WEE BIT…

STUPID.

ALSO! I AM NOT REALLY LIKE THIS SO PLEASE DON’T THINK POORLY OF ME!

If you are a girl, like me, then I am sure that you have run into some attractive males in your life, and vice versa with boys. Here are the steps to make them fall in love with you…

Step 1: find out their name. Usually this means following them around the mall until you hear their name said by someone else or finding it in a book or program somewhere.

Step 2: once you know their name, find them on Facebook. This may be a bit difficult because most likely there will be other people with the same name. If this happens, look through every single one to find him. Once you find him, send him a friend request.

 Step 3: Once he accepts (and if he doesn’t, then it’s time to give up cuz there’s no way that guy’s fallin’ for ya!) turn your stalker meter on high and start creeping. Look through his pictures, likes, favorites etc. to find out what he likes.

Step 4: Find out if you have any mutual friends. If you have some ask them for the dirt on Mr. Good-Looking that he didn’t put out on the World Wide Web. (If you already know everything from Facebook, then you are either a very skilled stalker and belong in the FBI or something or he’s just smart enough to hold some things back).

Step 5: find out where he lives. Once a week leave little gifts on his doorstep of things that he likes (which you know because you found everything out on Facebook!) After a while start to give hints to who you are. Once he figures out that it’s you tell him that you are deeply in love with him. If this doesn’t make him turn around and call the cops on you, you have yourself a keeper. If he does threaten to call the cops, blackmail him by threatening to spread the dirt on him that you got from your mutual friends. Now he has no choice but to accept your invitation to a dinner and a movie.

And you live happily ever after! The end! Good bye!  End of story! You have now successfully stalked someone! Because, you know, being a nice, non-creepy person is never enough right?

 *****

Here’s the sad thing about all of this: people really do put a lot of things on Facebook about themselves that they probably shouldn’t making it easier for strangers to find things out about them. Please be aware of what you put on the Internet because everyone and anyone can see it.

 

~Skooogster(:

Christmas Traditions

479 words

What is Christmas without a little tradition sprinkled here and there? Whether it's taking a family photo in front of the tree or going caroling as a family, almost every family does something unique. My family traditions are a bit odd but hey, traditions are traditions and Christmas just wouldn't be the same without them!

 

Christmas Key and Santa Screen:

This tradition spans at least four generations. When my mom was younger the room that they put their Christmas tree in had a door that closed and locked. When everyone woke up the morning of Christmas Eve the door would be locked because they always did their Christmas on Christmas Eve. After church at five or six they would come home and eat dinner but they couldn’t get to their presents until the door was unlocked. So finally after hours of waiting and eating and partying her dad would unlock the door, revealing all of their presents. My family took that tradition and twisted it a bit.

My house doesn’t have a door with a lock and key so we made screens out of plywood and painted them red. When Santa comes on Christmas Eve he puts up the screen and hides the key. On Christmas morning my sister and I can look through our stockings but we can’t go into the Christmas tree room until we find the key. Santa will usually leave a hint somewhere to help us out

 

My sister and I goofing off last year with the key in front of the screen.

 

Baby Jesus and the Nativity Scene:

When we put our nativity set away after Christmas, the baby Jesus figurine is placed gently in the box but when we take it out to set it up a year later, he’s not in there. We do this because technically, Baby Jesus doesn’t come until Christmas Eve so after church every year we come home and have to look for him and then put him in the manger to complete the scene.

 

One year we found Baby Jesus in one of our angel's arms

 

Well it was worth a try:

Every year we try to make a different kind of cookie or desert and every year we fail. This isn’t a planned tradition but sadly, it has slowly become one.

 

 

A Christmas Story:

Every Christmas we have to watch A Christmas Story and every year we find something else funny that we didn’t notice the year before.

 

 

 

Our Tree:

This isn’t exactly much of a tradition but every year we get a real tree. We go to a tree farm, pick out our tree and cut it down. In the little shed where you pay for the tree, these ladies usually are selling hot chocolate, cookies, and other winter decorations. I always get a Christmas tree cookie, hot chocolate and I always put a candy cane in my hot cocoa.  

 

So those are my traditions. They may be weird or strange to you but to me and my family, they represent another Christmas.

 

~Skooogster(:

Picture Day

503 words

Today is the dreaded school picture day; the only day of the year I actually make an effort to look good. I don’t know why exactly but people seem to just really despise this lowly day. It’s probably because people are very critical of the way that they look, me included. No matter how much you fuss, what you see in the mirror will never be good enough. It’s a day that guys come to school in just jeans and a tee-shirt. If they feel like really dressing up, they can wear a plain shirt (Guys have it so easy!). But the girls go all out.

Here’s a typical (probably exaggerated) schedule for us chicas:

5:00 wake up

5:10 start curling, straightening, scrunching, etc. their hair

(Depending on what they do to their hair, the time would be different. Maybe. But let’s go with curling to make a point.)

6:00 Put on make up

6:20 Get dressed (Careful! Don’t smudge your make up!)

6:30 Eat breakfast then brush teeth

6:45 leave

This would be if they had an early bird class. IF they didn’t, it would all be an hour later.

This is so ridiculous! Not to mention the multiple make up touch ups throughout the day depending on when your picture is being taken.

Then just when you think you look acceptable, the picture lady sits you up on a plastic step stool and takes a minute or two fussing over you.

No. that is not okay. I did not put that much hairspray in my hair just to have you move it. Maybe that’s how I want it.

Then they’re like, “now tilt your head a little.” Stare

Okay! Because I really want to look like I’m gazing off into space or a confused puppy. Definitely! I mean who doesn’t want that for their picture that goes in the yearbook that every single person in the whole school can see? No I, cherry pie!  

Again, is that really necessary? I would really like to just sit down, take the picture that I want, and be done. And if you add up all the time the picture lady takes moving and readjusting you, picture day wouldn’t take as long. Come on, people. Learn some time management.

After 11 years of waking up and making myself look presentable I am finally done. See, I’m a junior so next year I don’t have to get my picture taken because we use our senior pictures in the yearbook. For me, it’s kind of bittersweet. As much as I hate, hate, HATE, picture day, it’s finally sinking in how close I am to graduation and leaving high school. If any of you have older siblings, you kind of know what I’m talking about. When they were at home, they annoyed the heck out of you but as soon as they graduated and went off to college, you missed their annoying antics.

That’s kind of how I feel with picture day. I’ll kind of miss hating it.

 

~Skooogster(:

I Think We Missed Something Here...

400 words

 

 

I want you to see if you can spot the problem that I am having here:

I live in Iowa, like in the middle-ish of Iowa which is in the middle of the stars and stripes United States. Here, we are lucky enough to experience the extremes of each season.

It is December 3. Christmas is in (hold on while I count…) 22 days. Usually, by this time of year I have to wear gloves, scarves, and my winter coat to school. Sometimes we have snow this early but it’s almost always cold. I usually pull out my sweaters and scarves and hats and my awesomely fuzzy socks that I honestly cannot live without. People are planning secret Santa’s and Christmas parties and Christmas music is on the radio 24/7.

Not to mention my family just put Christmas lights up on our roof and porch and our tree is all decorated and I feel like we should be singing, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Everywhere we go!”

Just one problem….

Unless we went to Alaska, it wouldn’t look like Christmas anywhere we went.

It was 66 degrees outside today. Yesterday was in the high 50’s.

THIS IS NOT OKAY!

It feels a little, no, A LOT weird to walk out the door past my Christmas tree in nothing but a light jacket and I probably could have work capris comfortably today. Since I live in Iowa, Christmas equals snow and cold and frost and icy coldness that turns your nose holly red, not humid classrooms and driving with the windows down like it was today. My brain is seriously getting very confused.

Have you ever been sick and slept from noon on Monday until five the next day and when you woke up you didn’t know what day it was? Well, that’s kind of how I feel right now. I feel like the whole world fell asleep on November 30^th and woke up in April, completely skipping over Christmas and New Years but everyone is still convinced that it is December 3^rd and Christmas is only 22 days away.

At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if we turn on the news one of these days and Ashton Kutcher comes on and tells us that we’ve all been Punk’d and that we’ve all slept through Christmas and he got all of our toys that Santa brought us. 

 

~Skooogster(:

Rumors are Stupid and They Need to Stop!

401 words

 {Update in comments}

Rumors. Every person has heard them and every person has helped spread them too. Sometimes they are somewhat funny but there are others that involve people getting hurt and that is not okay. Rumors in general aren’t exactly friendly but once you cross a line, you’ve gone way too far.

The rumor that I’m thinking of involves One Direction. Now, I don’t want you to think that this is another crazy fan post. It isn’t. This post is to bring to the attention of my readers how horrible rumors can be.

So there is this whole thing going around called Mr. X. He is saying that a bunch of things are going to happen today and tomorrow. So far what he said would happen today, did. But those weren’t very serious. The seriousness comes tomorrow. One Direction is performing at Madison Square Garden tomorrow and Mr. X is saying that one of the members will get hurt. Severely.

I know you all are thinking that all of us fans are taking this guy too literal. I’m not saying that I believe what is being said but I do have to admit that it is seriously scaring me. Even if you don’t like One Direction, I think you would agree that you wouldn’t want one of them to die.

The thing with rumors is you never know what to believe. Do you believe Mr. X or do you believe the people that say it’s just people trying to mess with us? That’s the question. I really, really, really want to believe that nothing is going to happen tomorrow in New York but with rumors, there is always that little voice way in the back of your brain that says, “You know, it COULD happen.”

I understand that this is a very extreme example but that was kind of my point in this post. I want people to see how extreme rumors can get and how it can affect the people who care about the people the rumor is about. Also, I understand that the people in the One Direction fandom have a tendency to blow things out of proportion but I have taken that into consideration as well. All I’m saying is: rumors hurt people and when people over react and take things way too far; it causes drama that doesn’t need to be there.

So please, think before you say something.

 

~Skooogster(:

The Chosen One...Forever and Always!

404 words

 

 

When you grow up with something then all of a sudden it ends you’re kind of left there asking, “What now?” That happened to me after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out last year. Ever since I was in first grade, I had read the books and seen the movies. Now there’s nothing left except going back and re-reading and re-watching everything.

A lot of people say that they are huge Harry Potter fans but they’ve only seen the movies. In my personal opinion, you aren’t a true fan unless you’ve read the books too. The movies actually annoy me because they leave so many important aspects out. The locket that is in the sixth movie that belonged to Regulus Black was in the fifth book but that whole scene wasn’t even in The Order of the Phoenix. Another example is that in the book, Harry finds out about Hufflepuff’s cup from one of Tom Riddle’s memories. Since they didn’t put the memory in the movie, they had to completely change how Harry found it in the seventh movie. I do have to say though, the way that they made the whole thing work was some-what impressive. I will give them credit for that.

Do you see what I’m saying? There are so many crucial things in the book that all makes sense in the end that isn’t even put in the movies. There are a lot more but I won’t list them all in here.

You can call me a nerd, but I actually went back and re-read all the books, marking things that came back later on in the series. I was actually very surprised at how many things from the first book came back later on. To me, that shows what an amazing writer J.K Rowling is. It also shows how much they left out in the movies.  

So please, if you call yourself a true Harry Potter fan, do yourself a favor and read the books. If you like the movies so much, I am 10000000000% sure you will love the books as well. Plus, if you get the emotional parts in the movies were sad, just wait until you read the books. Then you’ll realize why everyone in the theater with you was crying so hard they couldn’t even see the screen.

I guess that’s just the effect that The Chosen One has on people!

 

~Skooogster(: