In my shoe, I got…

sunshine lollypops

play dough

star stickers

Peace, Love, Happiness

“Man’s power is in his prayer.  And where prayer goes, God follows.”

A button

Whistle with whirly top

May all your sauce be Awesome.

St. Christopher medal

Om Mani Padme Hum

When God made time, he made enough of it.

Glow stick

May you succeed in making every day one of happiness, health, and wisdom.

Tumbled stones.

bell on a ribbon

Canadian quarter

A trio of kisses with that wonderful Twelfth Night quote

Let it go, this too shall pass

The Masterpiece Collection of trading cards

A buncha candy

An origami bird

“The Door” Novus card

A magic marble

A mini santa stocking to keep it all in.

Some of the wishes are explicit and connected.  Some, I get to extrapolate.  Like the button.  Here’s a button.  That means that whenever I loose a button, I’ve got one ready to use.  How kind and fore-thoughtful.

The glowstick will not only help me be seen in the darkness, but is an excellent toy.

“Let it go, this too shall pass” is instant perspective.

Each of these items mean something to me and all of it goes beyond the surface.  I’m having a great time sorting through them and pondering.  They’ll probably all live as a collection on my desk for a while.  Except the origami bird.  It’s already joined the mini-collection I keep in the kitchen.

I realized yesterday that one of the surprisingly lovely things about filling each others shoes with wishes and tokens means that we each get to experience some true joy of receiving and connection.  We will sit down later, probably at home, and dump our shoes on the table.  Then we sort.  And we wonder.  Some of the wishes will make us laugh.  Some will be obvious.  Some are clever.  Some are a mystery.  But, overwhelmingly, the magic in our shoes reminds us that we spent some glorious hours in the company of people who offered their love and that you were one of them.

Our Sinterklaas shoe celebration is the karmic balance to our Krampus parade.  We come together to dress in horns and make noise on the streets.  Then, after our shared experience and energy blast, we gather indoors to enjoy each other’s company.  And, at the end of the night, we take home a shoe full of kind expressions of those very same people’s best wishes for you.

Sounds like a perfect night.

So, what are you doing next December?  Say, Saturday the 3rd…?

Significantly,

Susan Scot Fry

Update… I can’t help but wonder – did Faire start this way?  49 years ago, Phyllis Patterson threw a party and it had a theme…