Cally Bear

"I love it.  Just love it."

I thought Michael and Alice would enjoy a musical toy called a Cally Bear which counts down the months and then the days to Christmas.

Kalina has one for a couple of weeks and Hebe's is new this week. Thank you Costco for offering it on your holiday isle. 

Beginning on the first day of December the toy will also play the melodies of some of the traditional Christmas songs.

 I hadn't counted on Betty seeing the bear first when I delivered the bear.  Betty wrapped her arms around it while it was still in the package, and would not let go of it, even when we tried to untie the plastic wrapping and cut the wires that held it in the package.

With a love like that, who could expect the toy to last 24 hours. It had all of the attention it could take and now its electronic voice only begs to be reset by having an adult press both its right paw and ear at the same time -- an intervention which doesn't work rhough Miranda thinks it will reset December 1st.

That malfunction left Joan Turnbull and me on our own tonight at dinner. I had been counting on music from Cally, the Bear. Joan and I had to think up the Christmas seclar songs and remember the tunes on our own. I thought a good start would be the second and third verses of "Up on the Housetop, the Reindeeer Pause", since there is a small plot line about what Will and Nell are getting for Christmas.

Soon we segued to "I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas", an idea of loss that hasn't entered Michael nor Alice's head before. They were completely bewildered.  Who better to teach them that concept than their double-dose of grandmothers. Again, Joan and I hadn't brushed up on our lyrics and we couldn't remember everything that had been broken by or gone wrong in the anti-hero's life in that song. But our creativity filed in the blanks in our minds. Joan and I warmed up to our teaching moments -- she wanted to sing about people who didn't have teeth through which they could perform the traditional Christmas greetings.

I wanted to suggest that someone might ask for a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippo.  One that could be kept in the garage, massaged -- a one off.

Four new songs in an evening is enough.

I went home and the children continue to play hide-and-seek with Joan for the night.

Sign me, Grandmother-in-training-'cause-I-ain't-been-nuttin-but-bad'.