Dear Reader:

Like many other people… O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi has always been one of my favorite Christmas stories-the kind that you must read or hear, once again, or something seems missing from the holiday festivities.

It is a good example of irony. In this classic tale, a man sells his watch to buy his wife a set of fancy combs for Christmas, while she sells her hair to buy him a watch chain. Though, not exactly comedic instantly… the bittersweet tale finally allows our smile to form , even as we shake our heads in dismay. As grandmother would conclude… ” Well their hearts were in the right places.”

Haven’t we all experienced some form of comedic irony in our own lives? One little boy I babysat for the first two years of his life was my complete joy. I would rush home from junior high school to see him… I felt like I was another mother to him .

His parents rented the other side of our duplex so I was a built-in babysitter… I experienced total love and acceptance from practically raising this child … that deep connection that was missing from the trials and tribulations of adolescence…insecurity at its worse!

The final day of school I finally got my braces… my dream come true to finally hide my Bucky beaver teeth!!!

I ran up to Gregory to proudly show him my braces with a gigantic smile… the little toddler’s eyes grew big and he began screaming in terror and hid himself in his mother’s skirt sobbing loudly. I was totally distraught!

Of course, eventually, he got over the initial reaction but I cried myself asleep for at least a week before that precious child finally stuck his chubby little fingers in my mouth-felt the braces… I popped my oral rubber band at him-he laughed and the crisis was over.

When I read the following selection on comedic irony… it, also, took place around Christmas… it is so hot and humid these days in the Lowcountry maybe I just need to mentally move to visions of cooler times! .

One woman learned how the best-laid plans can somehow go awry… only to bring laughter to the disaster.

One Christmas a woman found just the perfect gifts for everyone on her list. She also realized her busy schedule left her no time to wrap them so she paid extra to let the department store do it for her.

She took great pride in finishing ahead of time, only to discover on Christmas Eve that none of the gifts had name tags. Embarrassed it seemed like a terrible tragedy to her. Until… the family and friends gathered began opening their tangled gifts.

Suddenly everyone was laughing as her 18 year-old nephew opened the box containing a sexy silk nightgown and her grandmother got football shoulder pads. They all ended up agreeing that nameless tags were a lot more fun!

So until tomorrow… Take a moment to reflect on how seeing the absurdity in a situation is much more fun than perceiving a mistake as tragic. I bet everyone can think of such an ironic incident in their lives.

Today is my favorite day -Winnie the Pooh

Sunday afternoon was Eloise’s dance recital … I think the whole Dingle family would agree we should have all received t-shirts that read ” I Survived Another Dance Recital.” We had to be there by 4:30 -an hour ahead to drop off Eloise and we left around 8 :45-I got back to Summerville at 10:00!

Of course Eloise was our star and we wouldn’t have missed her one debut appearance for anything but one can’t help but wonder if little dancers get cloned backstage because it seems like they just keep coming and coming.

On the way back from the recital the sun was sinking in the west-absolutely breathtaking and a special thank you to Walsh for ordering hamburgers for us all and feeding two hungry brothers before they ” starved to death.” Comedic irony!