Mommy Kissing Santa Claus? ~ by Gabby Angel

Continuing with a few more Christmas memories of Autumn’s and my younger days. We twinnies had been talking about this particular memory. Again, we were laughing so hard it was pitiful.

The song got barred from our house, for real it did! I did tell Autumn that I highly doubted any of our kind readers would be all that interested in this one memory. She is one convincing twinnie, so write this memory I will.

If any finds it weird, please take it up with Autumn! 😉 This is one that involves the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus“.

I always thought it was a rather odd song, so did Autumn. So we just kind of let it all slide, ignoring the song completely. All I can remember was as very young twinnies asking our Dad and Mom about the lyrics. Of course our parents laughed, assuring us Mommy wouldn’t be kissing Santa! Told us not to worry about, it was just a silly song, we twinnies were OK with that explanation.

A few years go by, we have the two younger sisters(Yes, the middle ones) in residence with us now. As I have revealed in a few other blogs… The now infamous L. and T. These girls being young heard the song for the first time. Asking Dad and Mom, they got the same answer we twinnies had gotten. That didn’t quite satisfy either one, it downright bothered T.

Well, needless to say the song becomes a major deal between the two. Autumn and I broke up one of their arguments…L. was teasing T. relentlessly! On L. was going about what if Mommy did kiss Santa Claus? Wouldn’t Dad be kind of upset? How many Mommys in the world would kiss Santa? T. argues back about L. being stupid and insists it was only a dumb song cause only Daddy kisses Mommy, so just shut up she added.Things got ugly as they gave each other a little shove, some minor hair pulling, too. Twinnies to the rescue, we each took one off to neutral corners to settle themselves down. They were OK for a day or so…Until L. brings the song up again! That girl just could never give things a rest…Loving to stir up T. and teasing her about “What if Mommy kisses Santa Claus?”

Autumn and I were sitting with them playing a kid’s card game. Sadly we all had snacks of juice and animal cookies…Look out, a food fight breaks out! Mom and Dad come running into our playroom…L. and T. both wearing juice and animal cookie crumbles. Autumn and I had even gotten splashed… Not a happy sight, chaos in full bloom. All over the ridiculous song! Well, in our house the song got banned to avoid any continued arguments. After the food fight L. and T. stopped the whole song discussion, thankfully.

I do need to ask…anyone still reading by now have any thoughts? Do you like the song, hate the song or remain indifferent? Just curious, I highly doubt anyone had this kind of dispute such as occurred between these two little sisters…Or did you? Do share! Autumn says this is a charming story…Uh huh, the kind readers can decide I say 😉 🙂

A Lump of Coal for You! ~ by Gabby Angel

I remembered this one Christmas season of Autumn’s and my youth. Having to share the memory with her, we both ended up laughing like crazy.

Some of these are the memories of our young days, we twinnies just endlessly laugh about now. At the time, we were kind of surprised at one of our younger sisters. I know, I have written about the two middle sisters more than a few times. I just can’t seem to help myself, those two girls when they were younger! Clashing all the time, bickering, picking on each other and sometimes pulling pranks.

Our family had one week to go until Christmas…Our parents were overjoyed at the pretty good behavior by all of us. Of course Autumn and I were almost 11 years old. The two sisters were 7 and 5&1/2…They are only 18 months apart. Autumn and I seriously did try to keep those two younger sisters in line. Not an easy job either, I must say…The closer we got to Christmas the worse they were getting along!

Decorating Christmas cookies a fight broke out between the two, each ended up covered in icing. L. had dumped pretty sprinkles on T. to sweeten her up. That’s what she said, her exact words…Mom was not impressed, to put it mildly! Next round, Autumn and I were helping them paint Christmas pictures, using water colors. Big mistake, an argument over L. using the red paint when T. wanted to. Instead of sharing, like we were taught…Well, we’ll just say it’s good water colors washed out of clothes!

On it went, so when L. showed me a small box she wanted help in wrapping for T. I was thrilled! I should have been suspious when she wouldn’t let me look inside the box. Claiming it was a nice surprise, I bought into it…After all Christmas was only a day away. They had decided to make peace, L.. was giving T. a little trinket…I am so naive at times!

So, Christmas morning dawns and we all set to unwrapping presents…Yay! L. was acting so nice to T. and smiling finally presented her with the secret gift. Autumn and I exchanged smiles, Mom and Dad did, too. Imagine the looks on our faces…T. unwrapped her gift, a lump of coal! For real, L. had gone to great lengths to search out a lump of coal with one of her friends help. It was the ultimate prank, and one I still remember so well.

Kind of strange, but those two sisters are the best of buddies as they’ve gotten older. Neither seems to remember all their fighting as Mom, Autumn and I do. In asking L. if she remembered the lump of coal present…Go figure, she had a memory lapse!

Wishes on a Turkey Wishbone… By Gabby Angel

I was thinking about the upcoming Thanksgiving day, it made me recall some funny times. I was actually laughing about some of the amusing wishes made on those turkey wishbones.

Autumn and I being the oldest and being twins, we started out with the wishes made. We never really had an argument over the wishbone. Over who won by getting the largest piece when pulled and got to make their wish, we kind of took it all in stride. Well, because secretly we had more belief in wishes made on birthday candles! We were kind of strange that way, I remember having that discussion as young twinnies.

We might make a wish on a turkey wishbone, but didn’t put much stock in those wishes. On to the next sisters, they were 4 and 51/2 years younger than Autumn and I. Those two sisters used to clash over many things…Maybe it started with the wishbone tradition. Who knows? Happily they get along very well now that they’re grown up We will call them L (the older one) and T (the younger one).I must not give out their names, since they wouldn’t appreciate this tale being told.

This one year it was their turn to pull the turkey wishone, and it really did get kind of ugly pretty fast. Those two middle sisters took their wishes quite seriously, the poor delusional girls. Anyway, the youngest sister T won and sister L just lost it. Stomping and throwing a fit, sister L who lost carried on about the whole deal…She was not a happy camper. Must have had a heavy-duty wish in mind?

All that sticks in my mind, was the huffing to the door and tossing her wishbone piece. For real, sister L did that! Then she proceeded to tell T that her wish would not come true, because said wishbone was gone. Well, thankfully Dad and Mom got them settled down. They were now just down to muttering a few nasty things between each other. I am ashamed to say Autumn and I were just laughing ourselves quite silly over the whole deal. We really couldn’t help it, you maybe had to be there to appreciate the humor. To us twinnies, how ridiculous causing such an uproar over a silly wishbone.

The next two sisters that came along didn’t ever get all upset over the silly wishbone tradition. Well, maybe because Autumn and I had those two girls hip to the fact that birthday candle wishes were more important. What a funny memory that one Thanksgiving is.

I have to remember to tell Autumn no teasing the two middle sisters this year, they both still get a bit touchy over this story! 😉

A Picture and the Memories… ~BY Gabby Angel

I was looking at one of my favorite pictures of my husband Dave last night. Any of you kind readers following my twin sister Autumn’s and my blog are aware, I lost Dave to cancer. He’s been gone over 8 years now, I miss him like crazy every day. About this picture, it’s of Dave smiling as he was singing and playing his acoustic guitar. He kept singing, as I snapped that particular picture.

I remember the evening he was singing this song to me so very well. I can close my eyes and conjure up the memories so easily, I feel am quite fortunate that way. The song, Joe Cocker‘s “You are So Beautiful to Me“, a beautiful song, a beautiful memory.

Dave sang so many, many times and so many, many songs to me…I miss that so very much. Recordings I have of him singing are wonderful, but not quite the same. Looking at this picture of Dave last night just made me cry, kept me crying for quite the spell. I finally got a grip, and finally stopped…It was because I could almost hear his voice. That’s how well connected we were, I could almost hear him saying….Please don’t cry sweetheart, I am always with you. He is of course, because he promised he would be…As often as Heaven allowed anyway.

I got to remembering so many things about Dave and me, our time together and our first meeting when we were 16 years old. He came roaring into my life in a mustang. That’s a long story that I will save for another time. I got to remembering silly and happy times throughout our years together.

One of my favorite memories was the proposal night. Others were just odds and ends of other thoughts and memories. I have to share the night he proposed. Very romantic it was, Dave really did propose to me on bended knee. After the beautiful wildflowers (they are my favorite) and the candlelight dinner, which he had made by the way. Dave had learned to cook at a pretty young age, so it really was a lovely dinner.

That man had already won my heart right from the beginning, just as he said I had won his.Dave and I were blessed in many ways, I keep trying to remember this fact. Some days or nights are just more difficult than others. Next to this picture of Dave on my wall, I have a set of his drumsticks hanging. I took them down and held them, that was comforting to me. It made me smile, he loved playing his drums and I pictured an early memory. Dave was in one of his first bands. He was rocking it out, behind those set of drums and singing his heart out. These are the times I want to remember…Dave and his music. I fell asleep listening to him singing ( a recording of course)…I had very happy dreams.

My Husband Dave…His Memory Lives On~Written by Gabby

Memories

Autumn has encouraged me to write this and share the story of my husband Dave. So I am taking her advice and writing about my wonderful husband. This has needed writing for quite some time, honestly. Dave’s memory will live on, I will make sure it does. Dave has so very much been on my mind, more than the usual I mean.

About my husband, Dave was and will forever be my soulmate. My sweet Dave, and my once in a lifetime love. Sadly, I lost him to cancer eight years ago on May 30th of this year. To me it seems more like eight minutes ago most of the time . They say time heals, but I’m sorry they are wrong because it doesn’t.

Does anyone have the perfect love story? Probably not, because none of us as human being are perfect. I would just have to say ours was as perfect as it gets … For me, anyway.

The Diagnosis

Dave was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (bone marrow cancer) on June 3rd of 1998, the day that started changing my entire world forever. If anyone is following the blogs here, then you may heard Autumn and I speaking about our Dad, also who passed away from Multiple Myeloma. It’s not a made up story, it’s real…They passed away exactly 40 days apart from this same evil cancer. Dad being the 40 days after Dave. I also miss my Dad every day of my life, this cancer robbed me of the two most important men in my life. I don’t think Dad would mind if I center the rest of this post on Dave, he is no doubt giving me a thumbs up as I write.

Dave

Well, Dave was so incredibly strong and a very special man in so many ways. He walked into my life when we were both rather young, and he never left. Dave was an educator, a carpenter, a musician…All in one package. His sense of humor was amazing, we laughed quite a lot and often.We brought out the very best in each other, we were just simply meant to be. The musical part of him, well that was just plain magic… A real God given talent.

Dave had a wonderful voice… He so often sang to me, sometimes I would fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He played drums, guitar and piano. While in bands he was always the drummer, he just was outstanding.

We both shared this love of music so very much. Dave also was the bringer of surprises, sometimes wild flowers, chocolate and other assorted things…Just because. We didn’t limit our gifts to each other for only birthdays (which were only 5 days apart) and holidays. He used to joke about being very old people and still having a blast and rocking it out. Also, he had conjured up a story of how we could exit this life in the same instant. That way neither of us would ever suffer without the other one, we were just too joined that way. Too bad that story didn’t go as planned.

Dave was a romantic, to the very core. To the outside world he just appeared a very happy guy who loved his wife and was clearly loved in return. Dave called me his angel, well I thought he was mine. He had such a gift for making every day we shared an adventure, he really did. One of the last memories of us while Dave was still healthy…Romping around a large amusement park. It was so much fun, we acted like young kids and just lived that day to the fullest. I’m sure we also made tons of people look twice, wondering who were these two crazy people? Racing from ride to ride and laughing loud and long. So many, many memories and that is my blessing because most of them are happy.

Love that transcends time

When he was diagnosed, we joined forces to beat this evil beast and kept fighting hard. Yet, we lost. And I continue going on… because I promised Dave I would. I am not saying it’s easy, I would clearly be lying if I said that. In speaking with Dave’s cousin Emily, she said something quite profound. Her words to me “You and Dave just had and still have such a love, it transcends time.” I think she’s right, we had pure magic together and so much love.

Each and every day is a challenge, but time goes by very quickly and I will meet up with Dave on the other side. For those of you blessed to have found love, hold on tightly and treat it kindly, please.

Oh, I almost forgot…If you see a star shining very brightly in the sky? Well, that would be Dave.

The Twins love Hats~By Gabby Angel

When young girls of 3 years old until way into early teens…The twinnies just loved hats! We were always on the hunt for the new and unusual. From Mickey Mouse ears, which we insisted were more fashionable worn backwards to cowboy hats, etc. We had so many anything worn on our heads was intriguing! Starting so young, we just loved pretending we were the characters of the certain hat we chose to wear.

What can I say? Twinnies do make their own fun even when quite silly to others! The Indian feathers, the tiaras, wide brimmed Southern belle type sun hats, scarves fashioned in unusual styles and the list goes on! 🙂 Our Mom and Dad used to get driven round the bend when we insisted the hats were just fine to wear on the most ridiculous occasions. We progressed to beaded leather headbands, shiny and sparkly scarves styled like gypsies, exotic looking brightly patterned cloth headbands as young teens.

We were blessed to have a wonderful next door neighbor girl who was 5 or 6 years older that helped us fashion paper hats which was a new one to us! Dusty was so patient and kind, very much fun and she encouraged our love of hats! 🙂 If you watch back our home movies that Dad loved to take, many and such a variety of the different, exciting hats we owned. Autumn an I watched them with our Mom just a short while ago and that did kick off this particular “Twin Memory”. 🙂

Mom loved elaborating to us how we even “borrowed” her hats and yes we witnessed the home movies and the pictures for ourselves. Luckily none were damaged or injured so Mom’s hats remained safe! 🙂 Dad wasn’t safe from the hat hurrah either, we borrowed his bandana handkerchiefs and styled those every which way on our pretty little twinnie heads, too! He used to just crack up laughing at our “style sense” at times! 🙂 A lovely memory that is, our Dad possessed a beautiful & infectious kind of joyous laugh. I can still hear his laugh and it brings lots of smiles and good memories, but also the tears still of losing him to cancer much too young. Autumn and I try to concentrate on the smiles. So, we twinnies as you can tell rarely met a hat we didn’t just simply love! 🙂

Autumn rarely wears a hat these days, I must confess I still do. My collection only consists on maybe 8 of them these days, but I’ve been thinking of adding to them! Maybe trying to get Autumn to join me to recapture our younger selves and embrace our “inner child” which I feel can be a joy to everyone, that’s only my very own personal thought. Hopefully you enjoyed yet another stroll down Autumn’s and my “Twin Memory Lane”. Perhaps it inspired you to all to drag out your own hats and just have fun, wear them proudly! 😉 After all, in life we all do wear our many hats as needed, sometimes real and other times they flow with each job or responsibility we take on!

See you next time for another one of my many, many Twinnies Blogs! 🙂

A Special Candy Dish~By Gabby Angel

I was reaching for one of my favorite’s, a butterscotch hard candy, when so many happy thoughts came rushing to my mind. The special candy dish my stash of butterscotch sits in was handed down to me. Technically an antique now, it really is and I have taken good care of it over the years.

The Great-Aunt who owned this was Mom’s Aunt, our Nana’s sister, Aunt Alice. I remember her so clearly, although she left for Heaven way too young. Autumn and I were only about six years old when she left this earth, but I remember her well. Sometimes my memory that is clear and goes back to 18 months old is quite the blessing. What a special and much loved Great Aunt she was, going to visit her was always a joy. She only lived a couple blocks away, in between our house and our Nana’s. This candy dish always held butterscotch hard candies by Aunt Alice, I carry on the tradition of course.

Those memories of our special people are the best, it’s like having them with us in a way. I have kept this candy dish nice and safe, the times I’ve moved this was so specially and carefully wrapped. I really do treasure the memories of Aunt Alice, she was such a sweet person and her sense of humor was amazing. We laughed a lot when in her company. Although she wasn’t our Nana’s twin, they looked so much alike and their behavior was very similiar.

They both thought Autumn and I just so intriguing and loved us spoiling us to no end. In a way it was sometimes like having two Nana’s, and that was a very cool and awesome thing actually. Anyway, when visiting Aunt Alice she made sure there was always butterscotch candies in this special candy dish. It started an early love of butterscotch for me and the “Aunt Alice” vibes still to this day every time I taste butterscotch.

She was a nurse our Aunt Alice, a very nurturing, loving woman. She was so very patient with Autumn and I she would play different board games with us, like Candy Land and always making us laugh. Another really nice memory I have is, she would also give us tea and other drinks in the coolest little teacups.

Aunt Alice just knew what made us little girl twinnies feel special. Like I said she left this earth way too early and much too young, but having such fond, wonderful and good memories helps to keep her close. I picture her hanging out with our Nana and checking in on Autumn and I, watching us throughout the years. Having her special candy dish is an honor, I will treasure it and keep it safe as long as it’s my care.

Of course also making sure to keep it stocked up with those delicious butterscotch hard candies! 🙂

Only in my Dreams.. ~written by Gabrielle Angel

It was another “Dave dream” last night. Kind of so nice, comforting and real…Until I woke up. Looked over at the other pillow, Dave isn’t there, he hasn’t been there for over 8 years now.

If any of you are following the blogs, sorry to repeat myself. I lost my husband Dave to cancer and it’s been so unsettling and quite difficult. In my dreams he is with me, off on one of our adventures and it’s all so good. Life sure is strange sometimes, expect the unexpected I’ve learned.

One thing that upset me the other day, was a woman being nasty to her husband at the grocery store. She was about my age, she was busy telling him off left and right. Kind of appalling and disgusting, not to mention pretty darn personal. It was so hard restraining myself from saying something quite outspoken to her. How I would loved to say, “He’s alive, count your blessings and be kind to the poor man. If you dislike him, well get a divorce or whatever!”

It really was irritating to me and I thought back to the times of Dave and I in stores. We always had so much fun, kind of always laughing and finding some way to entertain each other. We weren’t rude to other people or disrespectful in any way, we just had a good time. That poor man getting told off by his wife, I just could imagine what Dave would have to say about that happening.

We both just thought it was a waste of time and space to be around anything or anyone who made you miserable. It really is something I do avoid at all costs still, it’s not worth it. So, in my dreams I have my husband back…Sometimes I would just like to stay there. He is singing to me, laughing with me and he is so incredibly beside me. I miss him very much, still and I know I always will. Of course I can’t stay in my dreams were Dave visits me, I need to reside in real life.

I was chatting with Autumn about this, since Craig (her late fiance and soulmate) visits her dreams quite often, too. She agreed with me and we talked about them both at length. They were both such caring, loving and wonderful men…Why did we each have to go through the torture of losing them? The divine order of things and all that? Probably, but it’s best if we both don’t dwell on it long, but it’s good to talk about Dave and Craig.

Those remarkable men that were ours, we were blessed to have them in our lives of course we were. Sometimes when we’re together and people who don’t know us hear we both lost our soulmates…We kind of get these odd looks. Once Autumn was so annoyed by someone who said,” isn’t that unusual? You are twins and both had the same loss.” Her snappy retort was, “We didn’t kill them off ourselves, honest”. Sorry, maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. Craig and Dave would have gotten a chuckle at it ( and they probably did), their humor was much like ours. It did make us both laugh pretty hard, the guy who said such a thing was quite regretful. Autumn went on to elaborate how that’s what he seemed to be implying, so she had to say it!

Autumn, that twinnie sure is a real hoot to be hanging out with. That girl will always speak her mind whenever and whever, I do too. But she is so much better at it! So, in my dreams and Autumn’s…We meet up with Dave and Craig and we are each accepted an loved just for our own twinnie selves.

No need to wish either of “Sweet Dreams”, don’t worry we will be having plenty of them. 🙂

Gabrielle’s story – Twins Forever~written by Gabs :)

Well, you have the details of our birth and yes I am one minute older.

Does it make me different, more sensitive or do I make sensible or wiser decisions? Read on to find out. When were babies, we had our own language and I think it just kept rolling from there. At times even now, other people have looked at us with puzzled expressions. It’s called a twin dialect – our own sort of accent.

I can remember back to eighteen months old, seriously. I have this quirky thing I have a very good memory. Autumn has called me “her memory”, claiming I remember more than her. In my opinion , she merely has a filter, which can be a blessing. It can be a burden to remember so much at times.

My first early memory, we were five years old and entering first grade. They didn’t have kindergarten in our small town, so we started school rather young. Well it was decided that we would be in separate classes and big mistake on their part Autumn came and fetched me from my classroom (no fear, that girl), bravely hand in hand we marched to the principal’s office. To anyone who tried to stop us, Autumn simply stated, “we are going to see the principal, and you aren’t stopping us”; surprise, they didn’t either! Of course we got our way, Miss Autumn made sure of that and we were placed in the same classroom. We were the talk of the school for that one, even years later, the school nurse, teachers and the principal would reminiscence on our stunt.

You see the leader of “the twins”, she was from early on. Autumn is braver, gutsier than I am, certainly not evil or the bad one. I have been cautious, she’s been the risk taker. I have been the peacemaker, where she will argue the point (law background emerges) to the bitter end, for real! We have always been there for each other and that has been the forever best friend that has been such a blessing. So many stories so little time …

We dated guys who were totally different types, and married the same way. I will just say, hers ended in divorce and mine sadly in death, but Autumn helped me through that to make me want to live. The love of her life, her fiance Craig, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. When she lost him, the roles were suddenly reversed. It was rather scary having to bully her a bit to make her go on with this business of living. So to sum it up, Autumn got on with it. She has a heart as big as Heaven, she’s a constant support and joy! Now does this sound like she’s the trouble maker or the “bad” one? OF COURSE NOT!!

She is brave, determined and I love her very much. She will be forever be the wind beneath my wings – TWINS FOREVER!!!

“Wind Beneath My Wings”

by Bette Midler

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that’s your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I’ve got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you’re my hero?
You’re everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?
You’re everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.