You don’t know, do ya'

 Monday was a bit slow, as Mondays can be. There were of course, children whose very demeanor was encouraging as they came to my chair to to sit. Some on the spectrum, and some able to express what their thoughts about Christmas and their family. Actually, sometimes even when they are on the spectrum you can see how they feel about their family thru and behind their eyes.

I like to encourage parents who feel the pressure of exposing their child to the world and sometimes exposing the world to their child. Some of them can be a bit much. 

But the high point for me was a… I don’t even know if he was a parent to be honest. He and his wife and cohort in many adventures that he told me about and likely some that he didn’t even allude to, but the stories came with pictures.
He had a marvelous beard. One that I am truly envious of. Thick, full, I believe his natural color, he shaved his head so what do I know, and about the length that mine has grown to (in years). He said it would be twice it’s length in eighteen months. Envy and jealousy and covetous, those were my three issues.
And he showed me pictures of things where he had gone with a theme- a beautiful red white and blue dye job as well as a picture where he teased out his beard into an immense bush and dyed it pink in a gambit to make fifty thousand dollars for breast cancer awareness.
We talked for about fifteen or twenty minutes and I had the opportunity to encourage him to go forward with his plan to let it go white and be Santa. He and his wife spend Christmas in Mexico and he told me that the people there tell there children that Santa’s beard is dark until it changes with the snow, so they tell their children that Santa has come to check on them. Of course they assume he doesn’t speak Spanish and he doesn’t let them know tat he is carrying an AI interpreter in his pocket so he doesn’t miss much. He has had ideas but no real rudder for when he started. I gave him a challenge coin to remember the things we talked about and I think he’s going to come by again and I’ll give him a card. Maybe I’ll be able to teach him a bit. Maybe I’ll be able to introduce him to a deeper Santa heart.
Here’s hopin’.