An Old Santa

This old guy is about 40 years old.   He sits someplace in my home every Christmas.   This year he is on a bookshelf by the door.   I am suprized that he has  survived numerous moves in my life, mainly the one from my family home without getting lost or thrown out.  But here he is.  He is a little raggedy, he has misplaced his hat somewhere along the line and one of his legs falls off if I move him around.  But he is special to me just as he is and is a reminder of the very happy  Christmases of my childhood.   My great aunt made him for us kids.  Every year we would get a package in the mail from our great aunt(? great grandmother's sister)  who lived in Texas.  Getting a package in the mail was such an exciting thing, and knowing it was full of good things for Christmas made it  really special.   We always got to open it right away.  It would be full of the best Rice Krispie treats I've ever had and other treats.  And of course presents for us all.   My aunt gave me my first pierced earrings.  She had her ears pierced and my grandmother was completely against that.  It made her seem very daring at a time when screw on earrings were the way to go.    My aunt has been gone for a few years now, after a very full life.  She lived to be 94 years old and drove her own car almost that long.   She was a very special person.    She never married and lived alone with her cat, Sunday and probably others after him. I remember going to visit her and watching her sit cross legged on the floor to feed Sunday fresh liver out of her hand.   He wouldn't eat it any other way.   She could recite all  kinds of things from memory and did so quite often.   She made up songs about everything.   She made up a song about me and dad one time.  It made me feel so good, he wasn't really in my life except sporadically here and there.  But she still managed to make up a sweet song about him that made me feel better.  She was that kind of a person.   She loved to go on car rides in the rain.    Her name was Jocelyn but we called her Cooty.   "It's C-o-o-t-y she'd say, not C-o-o-t-i-e, I'm not a bug!