Honea Express

Posts Tagged ‘Holidays’

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

I rolled the virtual dice and three came up. Everybody drink.

Three was assigned to the third comment, meaning the winner is Laughing Mouse, soon to be Full Mouse and possibly Sugar Buzz Mouse.

I need to hear from you by noon (PST) on Monday (2/8)!

Thanks to all of the romantics that entered the contest. Your love makes my notebook pale by comparison.

Also, thank you to See’s Candy and Clever Girls Collective for making the chocolate happen.

Where does one start a love story? Does it begin across a crowded room on an enchanted evening beneath a layer of warm whiskey and the sudden knowing that nothing will ever be the same again? Or did it begin years ago in a field overgrown with wildflowers and hands swaying in singsong fashion as the meadow gave way to memories and the most beautiful thing you have ever seen was the way the sun glowed upon her skin?

Where does it start and where does it go and how many pages need turn before one is living in the happily ever after?

Me? My story is your classic boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl marries some soldier, boy fixes up old house, boy gets picture in paper, girl comes back, girl leaves soldier, boy reads to girl, flock of birds fly away type of thing. It was pretty romantic. They made it into a movie.

And it goes great with chocolate.

This is where you come in. The good people at See’s Candies and Clever Girls Collective want to help you out with the pinnacle of romance: Valentine’s Day. Yes, you can win some chocolate — a See’s Candies Red Signature Box — that’s two pounds of delicious chocolate, which the winner, that could be you, will receive in time for Valentine’s Day! We want to hear your sweetest love story, hence the “Share Your Sweetest Love Story” contest. Leave your story – or a link to it, in the comments below and a winner will be picked at random after the contest ends – 11:59 PM on the night of Feb. 5th. It needs to end before midnight due to the whole pumpkin thing – but that’s another love story.

Wait, that’s not all!

Extra Ways to Enter

Do you really, really want to win? Here are some opportunities for
extra entries, in addition to your comment with your Sweetest Love Story:

1) Visit the See’s homepage and sign up for the newsletter

2) Tweet about this contest using the #seescandy tag (you can Tweet daily and post the link in the comments below!)

3) Blog about why you want to win the Share Your Sweetest Love Story with links back to this post, as well as to See’s and post the link it in the comments below.

Enter Now! Deadline for entries is midnight, PST, Friday, February 5th and we will notify you by email.

Did you get all that? Enter on my blog and one winner will be chosen. Also, enter via the ways outlined above for additional chances!

Behind the curtain:
Compensation received for post – $50 Visa gift card & a Red Signature Box of See’s Candies (Yum!)

And nothing changes but the calendar.

I will most likely begin the new decade in the exact same spot that I end the old one, undoubtedly doing in the new year what it was I did in the the last – the safe money is on drinking something with the aftertaste of regret.

The year changes. The decade rolls over. Those that left us are still gone and those that are leaving will still leave. Debts will still haunt us and life will still taunt us and the laugh of my children will still make me melt.

The aughts are for naught and all is for the better – or so we are told to believe. They brought me my highest highs and my lowest lows and all of the life in between. I owe everything to them and they have taken enough in return. I can only hope that we are even.

The decade was a moveable feast and 2009 was the dropping of the bill – gratuity included.

2010 is a tease for the now. It promises promise and good things to come. I want to believe. I want to let the theory of a fresh start heal old wounds and move me, my family, my friends, my country and this mad, mad world towards new heights and clean slates. We’ve fallen divided for long enough. I want us to stand.

And nothing changes but the calendar, unless we want it bad enough.

I had every damn light in the room on and I bought QuickTime Pro just to make it brighter, but this video is still incredibly dark and grainy – like an Everclear and Coke. However, unlike said beverage this video won’t find you waking in your own sick on your ex-girlfriend’s lawn. Or jail.

This is kind of a messed up intro for a cute video of my kids, isn’t it? I’m not right.

Put this on loop and welcome to my world:

The Christmas lights weren’t going to hang themselves. The box of lights, staples and some plastic clips designed to adhere electrical wires to the overflowing gutters had been working as a doorstop for days. It was time they earned their keep. Besides, it wasn’t getting any warmer.

The overnight low had been in the single digits. The high wasn’t even old enough to drink. I finished my second pot of coffee and like Griswald before me I plugged into the season.

I stood on a ladder made of ice. Visions of sugarplums breaking their necks danced in my head. I was, for a moment, glad that my children were not there to see it. But I lived and I am lit and I never even touch the stuff.

Today I woke to another sunny, frozen morning. Yellow-breasted robins appeared outside my window. A number of blue jays bounced from branch to branch and perched upon the rail in front of me – their colors vibrant and brisk.

They put the lights to shame.

If I stand on my rooftop I can see a lake and hills and then another lake and hills again. Beyond that, blocked from view, is a skyline that falls into the sea and a coast that leads south to a place where my family can’t see the ocean but for the mountains between them.

It’s mostly side streets from there.

The boys play loudly on a floor with the toys that they packed themselves. There are no holiday lights or signs of the season. There are no stockings or carols or television specials, just the gift that they don’t know they are giving.

In the corner of the room there is a bed with their grandfather in it, watching them play and whispering their names and every new goodnight is their last goodbye.