Share Your World 12-21-20

Answers to questions from Sparks from a Combustible Mind for Share Your Words, December 21, 2020

QUESTIONS

• What is your favorite type of cookie (they’re called biscuits in Europe I believe)?

I love Oreos! If it wouldn’t possibly place me in the hospital, I would have a bag of every flavor in the house. The Red Velvet Cake Oreos from last year nearly undid me!

• If you could choose one age and remain that forever, what would it be and why?

I love the changes in my life that have occurred across time, so I wouldn’t want to remain one age forever. The different seasons of our lives are like the weather, with so much beauty in each, as we learn new things about the world and especially about ourselves. The Regina I was at 21 would be astounded at the progress I have made in loving myself and in learning to love others. I would have hated having stopped growing before now, and I am excited at age 69 to see what that oldster Regina will be like at 90 or 105.

• Do you have a traditional drink during the holiday season?

I love eggnog, no alcohol added. Its too-sweetness appeals to my love of sugar, and its thickness taste like pure silky goodness as I swallow. Douglas bought the low-fat version last week, but eggnog is meant to have fat in it! I plan to go get the “real deal” tomorrow, and I’ll just drink a smaller portion of the full-bodied version! Thankfully, it’s only served at Christmas!

• Are you able to still believe in holiday magic as you did when you were a child?

I never felt the magic of Christmas! I think you have to learn it as a child, and I didn’t get the chance. It’s interesting because my oldest daughter once told me that her and my other children thought that I was the real Santa Claus for them and all of the other children in their neighborhood. That’s probably because for three years after I adopted my kids I lived separate from them while I worked in another city to save money to buy us a house. In my guilt at not being with them, I bought everything on their Christmas lists and shipped it home to them, and Mama would take them with her to collect these huge boxes that they learned came from me.

Mama would then open the boxes and put the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve. When they woke on Christmas Day, they thought that only Santa Claus knew their every wish. So they came to the conclusion that only children can that I had bought gifts for every kid in the world. They thought it was really cool for their aunt/mother to be Santa. Now, that’s the true holiday magic that I wished I could have experienced as a child!

GRATITUDE SECTION (Always optional)

The prompt is wide open today, for anything you care to share!

I am grateful to be alive, to have my health and strength, and to be loved by my husband and children (including my beautiful step-children) and grandchildren more than I ever thought possible! I thank God the Father for our children’s good health and sustenance. In this year of crises, I am grateful that love is still more powerful than hate, and that the light of Jesus Christ still shines in and defeats the darkness of racism, sexism, and classism and all other isms that cause people to fail to see each other’s humanity.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you!