STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Dec 25, 2005? 

Today??™s Announcements:

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Happy Birthday Donna Curtman and Jodie Hayden.

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Merry Christmas to all my friends here on Storytime Tapestry.? 

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The contest is so popular this year with over 100 entries that it will continue after Christmas until all the entries have been published.?  I am enjoying this contest so much, that I do not want to turn anyone away.?  Thank you to all of you how have written and said just how much you enjoy the stories as well.

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Carol

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Now on to the good stuff..........

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Today's christmas Stories
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Noah's adventure? 

Norma Liles

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It was a cold night as nine year old Noah joined his brothers to guard the sheep. This was his first time to join in this? duty. He wished that he was back home to assist his Mother but his father had told him that he was not to be doing a woman's work any longer.?  It was time for him to? learn the gift of caring for their sheep.? 

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His attention had? been diverted by all the night sounds and antics of various animals.?  He had wondered away from the flock and when he realized that he had done so, he did not? know in what direction to go.? 

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Overhead, he saw this brilliant star.?  His father had told him that if he ever lost his way that the stars would guide him back to his home.?  With this in mind, he followed this star but it was not your ordinary star.? 

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Soon he came upon a stable where there was much excitement.?  There on the hay lie a newborn baby boy? with angels guarding him.?  Noah had stumbled onto? an an awesome sight; the birth of the Baby Jesus.? ? He had heard his? father speak of the coming Messiah so he knew? within his little heart that he had witnessed a true miracle; the birth of a King.? 

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After stopping to kneel at the babe's feet, he kissed the little one on the hands.?  He hastened back to his home where he? gave them the news of this precious birth.?  ? 

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NormaLee Liles ?©

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12-15-05

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? NormaLee Liles ?©

hoopla214@yahoo.com

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About Me:

Norma Liles is a retired data entryclerk/supervisor who lives in Ohio. Her hobbies
are: writing poetry and stories, reading, her family, living for Jesus and her use of her computer. Her ambition is to add pleasure to those who read her writings as well as sharing her faith.

My writings have been published on Starfish, Driftwood, Sandollar, Morning Spirit Lift,
www.poetry.com, PrayerofGod, Jan Karon's newsletter, American Poetry Writer's league,
Lucy's Inspiration, Faithful Hope reading room, Poetry of Today publishing, Hope in Him,
Bonnie's Place, America will remember and News Moose. Finally, she is a senior writer for Storytime Tapestry.

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~**~**~? 

The Doll? ? ? 

Doris B. Fandal

How many of you have played with a doll or dolls when
you were children??  I was always playing with my
dolls, cuddly dolls, fashion (my day fashions, not the
new stuff) dolls and even my paper dolls.?  I designed
and made clothes for my dolls both with fabric and
with paper and considered going into fashion design as
a career.
I still have one doll that belonged to my mother when
she was a small child.?  Her dress is getting very
yellow and fragile but I treasure her because she was
given to me by my mother.?  I have another that I got
for Christmas one year, she was a Nancy doll and I
really did dress her nicely. She was just the right
size to make clothes for and I loved doing it.?  She is
wrapped up in some cloth in my drawer now because one
of her legs came loose and I can't seem to find anyone
who has the right band to connect it back.?  Someday, I
will and she will stand tall again on my dresser.
The doll I love the most is my bride doll and a story
goes with her.?  When I was a single girl and angling
for a husband (Mickey), the local grocery in the small
town where we both worked and lived brought in a
beautiful bride doll right after Thanksgiving in 1960.
? Oh but she was so beautiful. She had on a lace dress,
a sheer veil, was carrying flowers and was a young
girl's dream doll.?  I wanted her so much that I would
go into the store every day even if I did not need to
buy groceries.?  I did not buy her because my salary
was not that high and she cost almost thirty dollars
which was a lot of money way back then.
The lady at the store kept encouraging me to buy her
or to tell my parents I wanted her but they lived in
North Louisiana and I was way down south.? 
Imagine my surprise when Mickey came to visit me one
day with a large package for my Christmas gift.?  I was
leaving to go home to my parents' home for the
holidays and he wanted me to have my gift early.?  It
was the doll!?  I was so excited.?  I still have her
sitting on a chest in my bedroom.?  Her veil and dress
is yellow and one of the grandchildren lost one of her
gloves but she is still as dear to me today as she was
so long ago.?  I wonder when he gave her to me if he
knew that everyone thought this was a kind of
declaration of his feelings.?  I guess I will never
know because I won't ask and he won't say if I don't
ask.? 
On Christmas Eve that year, he called me at midnight
after Midnight Mass to tell me Merry Christmas and my
parents thought he was crazy.?  They were not Catholic
and had been in bed for hours.?  The doll and that call
were some of my most precious memories of our early
years together.
Everyone has special memories of the years before
they were married and afterward.?  We should all
cherish these memories and yes, even share them with
others.?  I hope my children and grandchildren will
enjoy reading this in years to come and know the
special bond that developed between the two of us that
allowed us to marry and stay together for so long.?  We
will be together until "death do us part".?  We have
kept our vows and will continue to keep them.
Doris B. Fandal
May 27, 2004? 

?© Doris B. Fandal
mkayla38@yahoo.com
December 14, 2005

Doris Fandal, wife, mother, grandmother and full time volunteer for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Formerly a teacher but started writing after diagnosed with breast cancer.?  I am now a 6 1/2 year breast cancer survivor.?  I am 67 years old.

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? ? ~**~**~

I've Got?  A Secret? 

Sharon Bryant

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I am the oldest of four in my family.?  My parents had what they always called two sets of kids.?  I was three and a half when my first brother was born.?  I was almost eleven when my second brother was born.?  And I was fifteen when my sister came along.?  Dad was always saying, "You be the good example for the rest of the kids."

I used to think, "yeah, right, I'm 18 and have a 3 year old sister, what am I going to show her?"

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But going back to when it was just my brother Frankie and I.......I remember the day I found out there was no Santa Claus.?  I remember it very well because my little brother is the one who told me when I was nine and he was six and a half.?  I was devastated when it happened.?  And I wanted to knock the daylights out of him for being so much younger than me and he found out before I did.?  But then had he not been the snoop that he was, he wouldn't have found out either.?  But I took care of him for spilling the beans to me.

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This is how it happened.

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I never knew mom and dad and my grandparents bought us things and hid them in the house.?  And truthfully, I was never the type to go snooping.

It was Christmas Eve that day long ago in '55.?  Everything was happening at our house in Detroit.?  All the baking, all the good aromas coming from the kitchen.?  And naturally mom and gram was always "shooing" Frankie and I out of the kitchen.

We went upstairs.?  I was in my room, but I had no idea where Frankie was in the house.?  I was lying on my bed reading a comic book when he came flying into my room.?  He got up on the bed with me.?  I looked at him and hoped he wouldn't be a pest like he usually was.?  He kept looking at me grinning and I said, "What are you looking at?"?  "You!" he said.?  "Why?" I asked.?  "I've got a secret.....a BIG secret and I ain't telling you," he stated.?  "Tell me," I said.?  "No, you'll tell mom," he replied.?  He got my interest so I had to trick him as usual to get him to tell.?  "Oh, you ain't got any secret, you're just trying to get me to play some stupid game with you." I said.?  "I do TOO have a secret.?  I do TOO!" he said.?  "No, you don't, you're just making it up," I said.

"Well, I know Santa isn't real!" he stated.?  I stared at him.?  "What do you mean Santa isn't real?" I asked him.

"Cause I just know." he replied.?  "Tell me how you know," I said.?  "If I show you something, you promise not to tell mom," he said.?  "Yes, I promise," I said.

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He led me down the long hallway to grandma and grandpa's bedroom.?  There was a smaller bedroom off theirs, and though we never used it, I always thought it was where grandpa kept his clothes.?  I knew there was an old dresser there, and a closet, but I just never went in there.?  It was dark and I didn't like dark places.

Frankie took me there.?  He opened the door to that closet and I about fell over.?  It was filled with wrapped presents.?  "Look at my name on them," he said.?  I began moving packages around and saw, "To Sharon from Santa and To Frankie from Santa."?  Every package in there had my name and his on it.

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"See, we never heard any reindeer," he said.?  "Santa isn't real.?  Mom and dad did it."?  I stared at the packages and I began to cry.?  I wanted Santa.?  I wanted the dream.?  I wanted to always think Santa was real and that's why I always tried to be good.

"I'm not going to be good anymore," Frankie said.?  "I'm going to be bad all the time, cause Santa won't come if I am bad," he said.?  I got SO mad at him.?  I wanted to choke him.? 

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In grandma and grandpa's bedroom (the big room) there was a really wide door.?  It had a handle on it and when you pulled on it, a bed would come down out of the wall.?  Gram always called it the Murphy Bed.?  I ran for the handle and pulled it down.?  I got up on the bed when it came out of the wall.?  Frankie followed me.?  I jumped off the bed and lifted the end up and Frankie disappeared into the wall.?  I liked that.?  I could hear him yelling but his voice was low and muffled.?  I knew no one downstairs would hear him., so off I went down the long staircase like nothing ever happened.

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Supper time came and Grandma told me to go get Frankie.?  Oh boy, how was I going to pull this one off, I thought.?  I ran upstairs, and Frankie was still hollering but you could barely hear him.?  I ran back downstairs and told grandma he wasn't upstairs.?  I mean, after all, it wasn't exactly a LIE, he really wasn't IN the upstairs area, not where I could see him.

Well, mom got worried and she went upstairs to look.?  I know if she would not have gone into grandma's bedroom, I could have pulled it off and Frankie might have spent the night standing up in the Murphy wall bed.

But when mom started yelling out his name, he screamed back.?  And mom, having the hearing that she did, she heard something.?  She found him in the wall.

And when he came out of that wall, he was fired up and ready to kill me.?  LOL.......good thing I was taller and bigger than him, he made fists at me and screamed he was going to flush me down the toilet.

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I spent Christmas Eve that year in my room much sooner than I would have went.?  But one thing, we never let it out to my parents or grandparents that we knew Santa wasn't real.?  I let mom believe we believed until I was twelve years old.?  And that's when I told her why Frankie ended up in the wall that day.

We laughed about it for years.

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Sharon Bryant

1946 @bellsouth.net

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About Me:

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I am Sharon Bryant,? 59 years old and reside in Alabama. I lost my child in 1977 when he was five and I write articles on bereavement often. I am a chocolate/candy maker and also a wood crafter and knitter. I am married to a wonderful man, and have two remaining children, a daughter 26,
Amy, and a second son, Randy, age 24.

My main goal in life is to help those who
have lost a child. My website is: www.angelsremembered.tk

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~**~**~

My Christmas Gift from Little Bit? 

Aro

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I lie in bed last night, my arms wrapped around my blind dog,? Little Bit, my face gently resting on his head. His paw moved, searching for my hand. I held his paw with one hand while the other stroked the soft? fur on his chest. I felt a sigh as he drifted off to sleep.

We have cuddled in the same position every night, for almost eleven years. Yet last night, something was different.

I could feel his body relax and melt into mine. I could hear his thoughts as he slept.

"Mom. I feel so safe, so loved in your arms. Although it's been ten years since I've seen your face, I remember every feature, the sparkle in your eyes, the smile you seemed to reserve for me alone. So much has happened between us, the joys and sorrows, the highs and lows of our life. You've kept me safe; you've fed me and kept me warm. You've cared for me when I was sick and laughed at my silly ways. I'm sorry for the tears I've caused, and happy for the joy I've brought into your life.

It's Christmas Mom, and my gift to you is a promise. I promise to stay by your side, to love you always, to? continue to make you smile, to cuddle with you every night, as long as time allows. I love you Mom. Merry Christmas."

There can be no greater gift than the love Little Bit and I share, no bond stronger than the one we have. He is my heart, my soul, and my Little Bit of Heaven on Earth.

I kissed the top of his head and whispered "Merry Christmas my little bitty buddy. Thank you for being you, and for showing me a love I never knew existed. I love you too."

Wishing you and your furry angels a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.

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aro

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Writing is what lights me up. To create a story from a word, a phrase, or a thought, is my passion. To "touch" a reader is the reward of writing.
I live in CT, help raise baby cows and have two dogs, Little Bit and his Mom, Pepper. I am also the Proud Parent of a US Soldier.

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Arolittlebit1@aol.com

Bio:

Writing has always been my passion. I enjoy creating from a word or phrase. Living in the country with my two dogs, Little Bit and Pepper, provides a relaxing atmosphere for me to expand on ideas and discover the writer within.
Currently I am working on a book about Little Bit, my blind black lab. Someday I hope to retire and spend the rest of my days writing and caring for handicapped animals.
I am the proud parent of a US Soldier who has recently returned to Iraq for his second deployment. I pray daily for his safe return, and for the return of all of our Heroes

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Writers Feedback

Sadies Angel gave me chills. My girlfriends and I
witnessed something like this a month or two ago in
town and it was at a Bill Millers bar.b.q. We go into
Corpus Christi once a month to meet for lunch and shop
or visit.
The old man sitting outside on the sidewalk feeding
that dog had everybodys attention. We talked about it
and still do. I hug my dogs more than ever now after
witnessing that.
Barb

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Sharlett, you are an inspiration to me, dear. God must be so proud of you!

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Love,

Barb

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Carol,

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Jan's piece about Chrismas Angels has such a tremendous lesson for all of us. The help we give, the kind touches, glances or words, are seen by others and some think we are angels. We should remember that someone (other than God) sees how we live, hears what we say, watches our actions, and know what we are. I would hope that I have offered others such touches and words as I go along my way.

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Love,

Barb

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? SENIOR WRITERS

Chief Writer: Sharon Bryant

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? Agee, Vance;? Apted, Violet;? Baker, Kathy; Batt, Al;?  Berry, Nell; Blaine, Pamela

Boda, Ginger;? ? Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.;?  Cavalera, Robyn; Crider, Mark;? 

Deming, Barb; Doherty, Maria; Gilbert, Robert Jr; Goodier, Steve; Halley, Ellie Braun;

Harris, Kathy Anne;? Hunt, Sharlette;? Hymes, Christina

Jacobson, Gary;? Kiser, Roger Dean; Kerens, Claudia; Kevin, Tim Jenkins, Pamela;

Liles, Norma; Lilly, Jodi Flesberg; Lock, Joyce; Mazzella, Joe;? Morris, Deepak;

Ojeigbe, Georgewaters;

?  Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan;?  Shiveley, Debra; Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Streidel, Saskia; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam; Verhoeff, Jan

Walker, Bill; Walker, Joe;? Warner, Gorden K; Walsh, Sue

Weymouth, Barbara; Whirity, Kathy;? White, Robert;

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STORYTIME TAPESTRY STAFF

Publisher: Carol Roach-founder

Moderator: Thelma Hartselle-co founder

Moderator: Clara Westerfer

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