webster on the web

I love writing this particular blog, which is why I do it every year.

I’m blessed to be good friends with Santa Jim, whom many of you might know from Webster’s Winter Wonderland celebration, where he greets children at Village Hall and rides in the parade with Mrs. Claus. As a professional Santa, Jim also works as one of the Santas at Eastview Mall, and every year hooks me up with some of the children’s letters he pulled from the mailbox there.

These letters often make me laugh out loud, like the one a few years ago, obviously written by one of Santa’s parental co-conspirators, who wrote,

Dear Santa,

I have been pretty good for a two year old. Daddy says if I don’t start pooping in the potty he is going to disown me. I’m sure he’s kidding though … I think.

This year’s letter’s didn’t have anything quite as entertaining, but were in many other ways similar to the batches I’ve gotten in the past. Many came in painstakingly decorated envelopes, covered in stickers and marker drawings. The wish lists were written in pen, pencil, colored pencil and markers (and only one printed off the computer). They were scribbled on construction paper, sparkly craft paper, or just a page ripped from a note pad. A few just had pictures printed offline and pasted on the paper. Several children took advantage of fill-in-the-blank pre-printed Santa letters.

Most appear to have been written by the children themselves, so the “lists” varied from a one-year old’s scribbles to neatly printed and organized ones. These were occasionally highlighted and sometimes helpfully numbered (some in order of priority), even noting at which store Santa could get each gift (what happened to the North Pole?).

A few children asked for only one item, but many more were much longer, one stretching to 38 toys and games (hence the highlighting and numbering).

I saw a photo recently of Santa reading a child’s letter when he was visiting Webster Village Hall, his musings captioned as: “Electric scooter, iPhone, video games, PS5 etc… he’s only 7 years old.. what happened to trucks, cars, trains, airplanes, yellow Tonka dirt movers?” There were indeed several similar requests in these letters; Ipads, PS5, Oculus, Roblox. I suspect some of these children will be rather disappointed on Christmas morning, especially the one whose entire list consisted of a Play Station Portable, Apple Pencil, Saga Genesis, Sega CD, DS charger and Nintendo Switch.

But Santa will be glad to hear that trucks and cars were most definitely among the more frequently requested items. Legos were by far the most popular, but there were also a lot of requests for super heroes, bikes, board games, stuffies, dolls and clothes. Harry Potter items, Pokemon and Nerf guns also came up a lot, and I was pleased to see many kids ask for books.

Only one Bills fan and one Swiftie in the bunch, apparently.

A few other unique requests included a telescope, a hamster, donuts, a toy milk shake maker, exercise mat, rubber bands (!) and a Furby (they still make those?). One child only asked for a few dog bones for their puppy.

While I don’t think I LOLed at any of the letters, a few did make me smile:

Dear Santa. for my christmas list i want a PS5 and a drum set. i am six and can i have a tv in my room i want one

Dear Santa I want a toy elf that Look Like Mr. tinkle bottoms and I am nameing it Mr. tinkle bottoms the 2nd.

Dear Santa Claus, Thank you sooooooooooo much for the gifts last year I had a wonderful christmas and I hope you did to! … Thank you and even if I’m on your naughty list and you can’t make it happen I still love and appreciate you!

Dear Santa, I would like a car that I could ride on and it could move and can it please be pink and another choice is a really big 20 inch squishmallow named shena.

This one written by a parent, however, was probably my favorite (the kids’ names have been changed):

Dear Santa,

We are so excited for Christmas and for you to visit our house! We’ve been really good boys and we are working on keeping our hands to ourselves 🙂 Bobby would like lots of both big and small monster trucks. Jimmy would like 3 garbage trucks, a remote control monster truck, 2 front loaders, and 4 bulldozers.

Thank you for making toys for all the kids in the world. Merry Christmas! We will leave you milk and cookies at our house!

Here’s hoping you’re able to spend time with your loved ones this holiday season, because that is the best gift of all.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 12/23/2023)

Tags: Missy Rosenberry, Webster NY

No, not talking about Christmas, even though that’s arriving surprisingly quickly this year. I’m actually talking about the time when my current batch of Lollypop Farm foster kittens are old enough, heavy enough and healthy enough to return to the farm to be adopted out. (Interested in maybe adopting them? Read on.)

You may remember that Dipsy and Po became part of our family about a month ago, when they were just three weeks old. (Click here to read the blog I wrote about them back then.) They were two little black furball kitty sisters, small enough to fit in the palm of our hand, with big, bright blue eyes. They had been entrusted to our care to grow and socialize until they were ready for adoption. Better they do that in a foster home than in a cage.

They looked like black Tribbles, toddling around exploring their new world. They couldn’t climb steps, so we had to put ramps into the bathroom and kitchen. Another ramp leaned against the couch so they could find our laps. They had some idea of how to use a litter box, but about half the time decided the nearest corner of the living room was most convenient.

Five weeks later, things have changed a lot. Nothing — and I mean NOTHING — can stop them. They’re leaping up the stairs, climbing the cat tower like monkeys, and exploring every nook and cranny they can wiggle their miniature bodies into, whether I want them to or not. They’ve become best friends, wanting to do everything together — eating, sleeping (on top of one another), wrestling, playing with a new toy, mentoring each other with new ways to be mischievous. And they never miss the litter box anymore.

They make us laugh, they affectionately cuddle up on our laps at every opportunity, and basically have morphed from little kittens into little cats.

Dipsy and Po have added so much joy to our lives, and even though it will be hard to give them up, I know that they will continue to bring joy to another lucky family.

If your family would like to be that lucky family, I’d love to hear from you! Lollypop is more than happy to adopt these furbabies out to someone I know, rather than from a cage at the shelter. They also agree with me that they should be adopted together, since they have developed such a close relationship.

So if you’re interested in adopting two friendly, adorable and playful kittens, please let me know pretty soon. Just drop me an email and I can tell you more about them.

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Can’t take any pets permanently right now? Consider joining the foster program! It’s a very enjoyable experience and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re retired and need some new friends to help you pass the time (and we’re talking cats, dogs, rabbits, even horses). But I’m certain that even if you’re working, Lollypop would work with you to find a foster that would be perfect for your situation. Doesn’t cost you a thing; Lollypop provides everything you need.

Interested? Click here for more information.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 12/18/2023)

Tags: Missy Rosenberry, Webster NY

My regular blog readers might have noticed that I haven’t been blogging with the regularity that you’ve come to expect from me. No worries, though; I’m not sick. Something else has been distracting me.

Specifically, four seven-week old kittens.

I have recently signed on to foster kittens through Lollypop Farm. It was a decision I’ve been toying with for quite some time, ever since our Lilly passed away a few years ago. I needed something to fill the hole in my heart that she left.

After going through the sign-up and online training process, it took what seemed like FOREVER (actually only two weeks) before I was matched with some seven-week old kittens who needed a little extra TLC. The description Lollypop offered for the four siblings warned me that they were struggling with diarrhea. But I was so excited to be able to get some kittens, ANY kittens, I let that warning bounce right off me. After all, how bad can it be?

Turns out, pretty bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Gordon, Carmel, Mo and Gerry are indeed adorable. And they’re all very affectionate. And they love to cuddle up in a ball together in our laps to sleep. So that part of being kittens has been great. The let’s-drop-stinky-poop-all-over-the-living-room-rug-and-kitchen-floor-and-JUST-outside-the-litter-box part has been rather exhausting.

It’s been a learn-as-we-go experience for my husband and me. We realized pretty quickly that we hadn’t kitten-proofed the house anywhere near enough, especially for kittens that seem to consider pooping an Olympic sport. But we’re smart people. When every new challenge, we came up with a solution.

• Kittens going upstairs and soiling the carpeting? Build a barrier at the base of the stairs.

• Kittens able to leap over the barrier? Extend it with cardboard boxes.

• Kittens able to find a way AROUND the barrier? Attach planks of wood to the side of the steps with bungee cords.

• Kittens can’t get to the litter box in time? Put a second one in the living room.

• Kittens soiling the upholstery? Put towels and pee pads on every chair and wrap the couch in a plastic tablecloth (thanks Becky for that idea).

• Kittens pooping on the area rugs? Roll them up and put them on the porch.

So right now when you walk into our house, you’ll enter a living room with a bare floor, litter box in the corner, and plastic pads and towels spread EVERYWHERE. There’s a box of floor and carpet cleaning supplies within easy reach, and a basket of rags which gets accessed regularly. We’re doing two loads of laundry a day.

So you see that we’re kind of on duty all the time, and pretty much every hour or so we have to run around behind the kittens to make sure they’re getting to the litter box or — especially with Carmel — cleaning up a half dozen little messes. Things are slowly getting better, but it’s been rather time consuming.

BUT. I love having these little stinkybutt kittens around. My husband is clearly getting a little aggravated (especially since he gets up before me and so has to clean up all the overnight messes). But when they look up at me with their adorable little kitten faces and huge purrs, they melt my heart.

So no regrets, and I will miss them when they’re old enough to return to Lollypop for adoption. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep blogging, but it’s often hard to accomplish with four balls of fur climbing all over me.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 11/8/2023)

Tags: Missy Rosenberry, Webster NY