Dear Reader:

Christmas Eve… When the Magic of Christmas Begins to Manifest itself through the music and storytelling of the original Christmas Story…

And yes… there is always room for Santa Claus whom I consider one of God’s most special ” angels.” Long-awaited every year by children around the world!

The Magic of Christmas Eve should be perpetuated by all of us … spreading the magic of excitement, anticipation, and gratefulness for the next generation to remember fondly of their childhood.

The real concept (that children should take into adulthood) is that Santa might only come once a year …BUT… God is with us from our first breath to our last… !!!

Several of you readers ( from other parts of the country) asked me what benne wafers were? It then dawned on me that benne wafers are a Lowcountry Gullah cuisine that came through the Colonial slave trade. No wonder you were clueless. Quick history lesson.

Benne ( the Bantu word for sesame was brought from Madagascar to W Africa and then through the Colonial Slave Trade Market to the Southern colonies.

Today it is quite the skilled baker ( Lassie) who can make the seemingly impossibly thin wafer in its time-honored tradition!

In Africa the benne plant was thought to bring Good Luck and to ward off evil! Thus African-American slaves grew it in their own gardens! Gullah people called it the ” Goodwill” Plant! ” Bon Appetite!”

………………………………………………………………….

For Walsh’s birthday we first went to their church for the musical Christmas program re/telling the birth of Jesus… it is Seacoast Church in Mt Pleasant and the auditorium is as huge as an amphitheater …so the traditional candle lighting at the end looked like thousands of bobbing white lights on a dark ocean.

Eva Cate and I inside the church forum!

And then on to a Mexican restaurant… good food and fun! Happy Birthday Walsh… your birth brings back wonderful memories!

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day… Winnie the Pooh