I am a child of divorce whose life was was miraculously tempered and shaped by the glorious gift of  kind and gentle grandparents who lived on The Great River in Minnesota--the great and mighty Mississippi.

What child is this who snuggles down in her bed after watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, eating Star Cookies (shortbread, iced with blue-anise frosting and "blued" sugar, date balls rolled in coconut, and russian teacakes to her heart's content? Oh, and don't forget the plate of cookies and tall glass of cool white milk we left on the smoldering hearth for Santa Claus under our stockings hanging with longing and anticipation to be filled, stuffed and overflowing with precious, yet unnecesssary tiny treasures...

Let us not forget Grandma tucking us in upstairs behind the windows bedazzled with big blue lights (hung by grandpa magically high up on the roof top edge), and the snow laden firs that surrounded the house nestled upon on the river bluff, where with folded hands and sqeezed shut eyeswe recited the prayer that we recited every night spent with grandma and grandpa: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to sleep..."

But tonight...we we had visions of sugar plums in our head...and slept like little snow angels...anticipating the arrival of ol' Kris Kringle, the King of Jing-a-ling, his ringing sleigh bells, and his gift laden sleighdrawn by delightful, magical Nordic reindeer.

My litter sister and I wake up to a veritable Winter Wonderland with animal tracks from here to eternity...deer, red fox, ruffed grouse, raccoons, and every kind of bird native to Minnesota--red cardinals, blue jays, piliated woodpeckers, chickadees, and don't forget the squirrels which were blessed with suet feeders stocked by dear ol' grandpa. The smell of coffee brings us tumbling down the stairs in our zippered-pajama suits, racing to see if Santa has truly visited our more than humble abode. 

Truly he has--and with great generosity! Under the blue spruce, the presents spill out...and the stockings! Oh, and look! Santa ate the cookies, drank the milk and left a note!!! In signature Santa scrawl he wrote: Dear Little Ones, thank you for the delicious cookies and refreshing millk. Thank you for being such good little girls. Merry Christmas! Santa.

Yeah! We are happy, despite the fact that our parents are divorced, we never see our "Daddy", and we live  with our welfare mom above a drugstore on a busy city street with a gravel parking lot for a play ground. 

How can I explain the disparity? What happened? What did my mother have and what did she forsake, and why?