Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a little girl who was a "Bluebird" (the CampFire Girls version of "Brownies" for those Girl Scouts out there). One day, at a December Bluebird meeting, the little girl's troop leader announced that they would be making snowmen to decorate their Christmas trees. The little girl clapped her hands with delight as she loved to craft, even though through the years to come many art teachers would tell the little girl she was artistically-challenged.As the little girl and her friends gathered around the large wooden work table, filled with a delightful assortment of colorful supplies, she could feel the excitement and energy of what must be the artistic muse filling the room. Dozens of hands reached across the table through scattered lace, sequins, styrofoam, and pipe cleaners, everyone laying claim to the perfect pieces for their own snowman sculpture. But, the little girl had a different idea has she quietly scooped up two lone gray styrofoam balls, pinned them together with paper clips, and began adding scraps of red and white lace and netting, pipe cleaners, and sequins to her creation. As she neared completion, the troop leader suddenly took notice and asked, "Why, dear, here, we still have some regular styrofoam balls left. Don't you want to use them?" "No, " replied the little girl, quietly, still gluing and positioning her lace, "this is the snowman I want to make." The troop leader continued, "But it's gray." "I know," answered the little girl, and simply smiled as she finished gluing the final piece of lace into place.
The little girl took her snowman home that night and hung it on the highest branch that she could reach of the family Christmas tree. Her mother smiled and told her it was a wonderful snowman, but it was her father that gave it the name that has lasted all these years. He took a very long look at the gray snowman and said, "Oh, I get it - it's a New York snowman!" And he laughed a very long time. The little girl didn't understand at the time why he was laughing, but she was glad that the snowman made her father happy.
Over the years, the New York Snowman always came to have a place of honor on the family Christmas tree, and yes, as the little girl grew there came a time that she did understand why her father laughed and gave the snowman its name. She laughed with him as she thought of pure white snow made dirty by the exhaust and travel of city traffic.
And then one year, her first year alone at Christmas and many, many miles away from family, the little girl received a package. Inside was a carefully wrapped bundle with a note in her father's handwriting ~ "It's time for him to go on your tree now." The New York Snowman had come home to the little girl.
The little girl has grown up, married, and has a growing family of her own now. Yet, every Christmas, one of the very first ornaments still placed on her tree, in a place of honor, with heartfelt memories of what it means to create with love, to share with family through the years, is the New York Snowman. May your holiday decorating be filled with love and sharing!
~Post Script #1....the "little girl" has just now noticed that New York Snowman is "Scarlet and Gray"! How fitting ~ GO BUCKS!
~Post Script #2...when the "little girl" made this "Scarlet and Gray" New York Snowman, she was living in Michigan ~ how ironic! GO BUCKS! (and this week, we are also saying, GO OKLAHOMA!) :-)
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