photo courtesy buynothingchristmas.org

The first Christmas after we married my husband and I had almost no money at all but still wanted to be able to give each other something special.  We each made a list of ten things that we’d like for Christmas and then exchanged the lists to take the guess work out of shopping.  One might argue that we’d also taken the thought out of the process, but that didn’t occur to us at the time.  And so we took our lists and carried out our “plan” to buy each other a few gifts.  When Christmas morning came - surprise!  It turned out that my husband had purchased everything on my list, and I had purchased everything on his.  But how, when we had no money?  Credit, of course!

I look back on that first Christmas as a demented consumerist version of “The Gift of the Magi”.  That was…

I went to my first prom last night and had the time of my life.

My friend Tim Ellsworth and I were invited by Todd Perry, Executive Director of the Pujols Family Foundation to attend their third annual prom for young adults with Down syndrome:

Get dressed up and boogie! After such a successful event last year we had to this again! This event will be invitation only to people with Down syndrome, ages 16 and older. The Dance will be held at the Crowne Plaza in Clayton on October 23, 2009.

Though Albert had elbow surgery just this week, he and his wife Deidre lit up the room with beaming smiles, taking great joy in the fun everyone was having.

Special guest Fredbird, the St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot, led a dance line with hundreds of super-smiling kids joining in behind him.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographed the event, and put some pics on the front page…

When my sons heard the “A-Rod did ‘roids” story on the radio, my eleven-year old said, “I sure am glad Albert Pujols never took steroids.”

Ditto.