I thought about it for what felt like forever as I walked back and forth through my apartment trying to think of a good, had-to-be-practically-invisible spot. I must have looked like a mad woman carrying shoeboxes from one end of the place to the other repeatedly. Thank the stars no one was there to witness the insanity.

Baffled and flabbergasted I frantically searched until a fabulous idea stormed into my frazzled brain. Why not hide the boxes where the hounds would never expect something to be hidden. Right under their very noses, in their own backyard, so to speak. In their own bedroom, there was nothing but a few bags of clothes and boxes of discarded items. Nothing that would pique their interest, right?

I practically bounced into the allotted room, swung open the closet door and dropped the boxes precariously on top of the bags. They were in plain view. This was so simple it was brilliant. When I was satisfied with the deposit, I left the room...deliberately leaving the closet door open.

Oh, I was feeling fine right at that moment. The good stuff was warming my insides like a microwave oven on HIGH. Hope was filling in all of the voids and all sorts of ideas were creeping into my head as to how I was going to pull off Christmas for my kids. I still didn't have a chance in hell to find money for a turkey or all the fixins but there were ideas sprouting all over the place to make it not seem so lost to us.

The kids came home and everything went on like it was a normal day and evening. I had a perpetual smile on my face and I was even humming a merry tune every once in a while. Now that was something to behold 'cause I can't carry a tune to save my life, but I was doing it anyway. I did manage to find a few dollars. Well, to be truthful, I begged my ex boyfriend for ten dollars.