Hello kids! Christmas is coming and we should have a fun project here in the land of the fun lovin' other than magic types or whatever this section of forum is called. We shall write a Christmas story! Yay! Someone out there can do illustrations and put it on a .bfd file or whatever it is called. If no one wants to do that then I guess this entire thing will be a bust and it will decend into the depths of the forum until it is brought up.

Here are the rules:
1. The story should be designed for children and each entry should be considered a page, the story should be no more than 15 pages in length, at least seven.
2. Each entry should take into account the previous contributions and focus on the flow of the story, lets try to make this a good story.
3. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, keep this in mind as you contribute to help move things along.
4. PM me if you want editing powers at the end of 15 pages or so, if no one wants to I'll do it, if this thread goes no where, then that'll be it.
5. I now have bad visions of how this will end up.

Here, I'll start with page one:

It was cold outside and the stars seemed to twinkle a bit more than they did in the Summer, perhaps trying to keep warm. Crystal loved living in her families cabin in the woods, but it got very lonely at times, and she was waiting for her cousins to arrive from the city to celebrate Christmas. It was going to be fun to see them and she would get to show off her new puppy Springer, who was looking out the window with her.

Your turn hippies!

Santa
I have heard people call others here hippie. I suppose that it was not meant to be a compliment, but other that that I haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Please explain.

I think it means you tend to gain weight below the waist...

It means fat butt?

It means everyone over, say, 55.

John, the near-hippie.

John
This is a commonly used magic Café derogitory term, and certain people around here throw it around as if we all knew what they were talking about. There has to be more to it than just age. I thought that I was a war baby.

Yeah, but it's like "socialist". After it was bandied about for a while, I asked my eldest daughter, "how would you like it if somebody at the Café called you 'socialist'?" She replied, "I'd be proud."

John

My daughter called someone a weenie, and I surmised that a weenie was someone that was not as cool as her. He was probibly a magician.

Snow was gathering in the branches of Douglas firs, angel wings shimmering in the cool winter sun. Cloven hoofprints, many large but some very small, marked the thin layer of snow beneath. Crystal pulled Springer tight under her arm, snuggling him under her quilt and gently rocking back and forth. "Look Springer," she whispered, pointing to the tracks, "who has been here?"

Isn't that the real reason she liked "Let The Right One In" (those Socialist Swedes!) more than "Let Me In"?

Maybe. She like Volvos and Ingemar Bergman, but has no tase for Abba.

John

Al,
A hippie refers to the "flower children" of the 60s. Famous for protesting Vietnam, studying eastern spirituality, wearing tie die, free love, communes and smoking lot's of pot --> followed by lots of LSD during and after Timothy Leary.

Interestingly there were more distinctions at the time. To me, my mom looks like a "hippy" in her old school pictures, but she claims that hippie's just sat around and smoked pot and that she was a "political".

I think hippy comes from "hip" as in cool or in.


P.S. when I have a little more time I'm planning on contributing to the story.

What do you guys have against socialists?

So far we have:

It was cold outside and the stars seemed to twinkle a bit more than they did in the Summer, perhaps trying to keep warm. Crystal loved living in her families cabin in the woods, but it got very lonely at times, and she was waiting for her cousins to arrive from the city to celebrate Christmas. It was going to be fun to see them and she would get to show off her new puppy Springer, who was looking out the window with her.

Snow was gathering in the branches of Douglas firs, angel wings shimmering in the cool winter sun. Cloven hoofprints, many large but some very small, marked the thin layer of snow beneath. Crystal pulled Springer tight under her arm, snuggling him under her quilt and gently rocking back and forth. "Look Springer," she whispered, pointing to the tracks, "who has been here?"

While Crystal carefully examined the tracks, a bear appeared from behind her and stole springer from her arms with his huge jaws and took off like greased lightening. Crystal pulled out her Sig Sauer p226 loaded with black talons and before she had a chance to fire a shot off, there was a louder shot comming off the grassey knoll beside her. Down when the bear. Springer escaped unharmed. The plot thickens....

Just then a troupe of troubadours rounded the bend and began to sing a nat king cole song, and they rocked it. The dog, Springer, ran up to the troupe of troubadours and, seeing this, Crystal cried out "No, Springer do not be swayed by the ways of The Cole. We are fans of The Crosby!". Hearing this, Springer thought "Crazy woman, I clearly cannot respond to her taste in music. When will it end?". The bear, quite dead at this point, had begun to smell, and Crystal (after recovering from the ordeal over the music) started to drag its carcass over to the pit, where all dead animals are kept, and she noticed yet another set of tracks, these smaller, more...dainty.

Courtney
I remember the hippie movement very well, In 1965 I was 20 years old. My point is that guys like MagicSanta throw HIPPY around to the point where it only means someone who is not as cool as he is. I could tell you stories about the 60's, but from 1965 to 1975 I draw a blank.

Im higly amused crystal has a pit full of dead animals. Stanley Kurbrick, call your office...

HH

To be fair, Young Crystal packs a p226.

So far I like where this is going ya freaks!

Since you are wondering, Al, the term hippy is fun loving it isn't derogitory. When I went from San Francisco area in 1970 to Georgia for two years we would go to the farmers market in Atlanta and they had a barbershop that said "Free Haircuts for Hippies" and my brothers hair touched his hair and every time we walked by the geezers (now all dead I'm sure) would yell "You qualify for the free cut hippy!". So now you know. Of course in reality hippies were the guys that would wander around the Santa Cruz hills and parks in the bay area, do drugs, and reach into our pockets to see if we had any change when we were kids.

The funniest hippy moment was in the Santa Cruz foothills when I was a kid. We found a couple girls, these were real hippies not phoney Al hippies, who was in the Navy at that time, wandering down a trail. They had a seven up soda and kitchen matches and would light a match and dip it into the seven up then suck on the match head thinking it would get 'em stoned! They asked if we ever smoked bananas.