The first one was out in the street - there's a life-size Santa mannequin outside a store, and other than the fact that it is a disconcertingly SKINNY Santa I didn't think anything more of it when we first passed it. What I didn't realise at that time, and found out on our return journey past the same figure, was that it was an ANIMATED Santa mannequin. A young mother and a little girl of no more than four or five years old - wearing a Santa hat herself - had stopped in front of the mannequin, and had obviously toggled something - because the mannequin suddenly began gyrating at the hip like a Christmas Elvis singing "Jingle bells" and then saying "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and asking, "And what do YOU want for Christmas, little child?" (intelligent, that - no "boy" or "girl" confusion, just "child", applies to everyone..." The little girl was *mesmerised*. She stood there before the dancing Santa with her mouth open and her head cocked to the side like a puzzled puppy's, and she kept on looking around at passers by with eyes the size of saucers and pointing at the Santa without a word as if to say, "look, are you seeing it too? It's dancing! it's TALKING to me!" A man passing by began to sing a carol together with the Santa.
rdeck and I stood there grinning like two loons. The mother was giggling quietly into her glove. And still the Santa sang and danced and the little girl stood staring, bewitched, smitten, amazed. Oh, when Christmas comes out and smacks you on the noggin. As we were leaving I said to the mom, "Thank you, that MADE MY DAY!" She smiled back and said, "Mine too!"Not much past that delightful scene, we came across a car parked in the street, It had a very large OBAMA painted on its side, right along the length of it. But what was even more wondrous was the rendering (by an indifferent artist, to be sure, but still a recognisable image) of the POTUS himself on the front of the vehicle, made even more remarkable by the fact that he was flanked by two fluffy white clouds between the two of which, right across the top of his head like a halo, stretched a cheesy little rainbow.
Fan, much, you think...? You don't see THAT every day.
Oh, for a camera today. Oh, for a camera.
Thanks for the smiles, world. Merry Christmas rightbackatcha.
