So! Now! it’s my turn to talk about sweets! First, Tessie accidentally let the cat out of the bag, (no, not Mr. Squee! As if you ever could keep him in a bag!) then Tillie picked up with a full confession that we Whimsies enjoy a bit of sweet now and then. She happened to mention that I was partial to chocolate, and oh my! That is true! But there’s something else I want to talk about in regard to chocolate.
Chocolate is great any time of the year, of course, but never more than at Christmas. There’s something about Christmas that makes everything that is already special seem even more special. Think about it. Sometimes it snows…but the best snow is Christmas snow. Otherwise why would we have that famous song “White Christmas”? 
Speaking of songs, there’s also that song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Being home is always comfortable and extremely pleasant, so why do we actually sing about it when we’re home for Christmas?
But I’m getting off track, because I’m here to talk about chocolate, and specifically about Christmas chocolates. And this story begins a long, long time ago, back when I lived in The Hoard. In a Hoard there are of course many things, and if you’re lucky enough to be in the right kind of Hoard, there will be lots and lots of good reading material. My Hoard was like that. That’s how I discovered comic books, but I also discovered something else very special that would always appear in The Hoard, just before Christmas time.
It seems there is a magical place called The Swiss Colony, where all they do all year long is bake cookies, and make candy, and prepare meats and cheeses for sale during the holidays. It’s got to take them all year to get all this ready, 
because when they send out their catalog just before Christmas, there is so much wonderful stuff to look at in there, you could get a tummy ache just turning the pages!
The pictures in this catalog are so beautiful! Now, since the advent of The Internet, I’ve managed to see a lot of beautiful pictures (and some not so beautiful pictures, but we won’t talk about that), but I still have to say some of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever seen in my life are the pictures of candies and cookies and cakes that grace the glossy pages of The Swiss Colony catalog.
Every year like clockwork the Hoarder would bring in dozens upon dozens of catalogs during the weeks just before Christmas, and while a lot of them had silly stuff like sweatshirts and bath mats and tiny little Santa Claus pins that would light up and play “Jingle Bells,” The Swiss Colony catalog could always be depended upon to display the very best in sweets!
Each year when the catalog first came in, The Hoarder would quickly look at it, then toss it on the top of the Hoard, never to think of it again. The first night it was there, I would sneak over and climb to the top of that mountain, and rescue that catalog and bring it back to my own comfy corner of The Hoard. There, I would spend many happy hours, looking at it by the moonlight that shone through the single pane of the bare window, wondering if these chocolate delights in fact tasted as good as they looked.
Till then, I had only had the opportunity to sneak a bite or two of a Snickers bar from Abigail, my human. She wasn’t nice enough to share it with me, so I would sneak a tiny bite now and then, when she wasn’t looking. And it was delicious! Looking at The Swiss Colony catalog, I always dreamed that those chocolates would taste just as good.
Then one day, I didn’t have to dream anymore! I actually found out! Again, I had to sneak, because no one was actually nice enough to share with me. This was shortly before Tessie found her way into The Hoard. It was Christmas Day, and The Hoarder had a visit from an old friend. The old friend brought The Hoarder a gift, and it was a box from The Swiss Colony! (It said “Swiss Colony” all over the pretty green box.) Well, the friend only stayed for a few minutes, because there was no place for her to sit down, and who wants to sit down in a Hoard anyway, right? But when the friend left, The Hoarder opened the box, and started eating all these delicious chocolate candies called “Petit Fours,” and as I watched, I was so afraid that she was going to eat ALL OF THEM and not leave even a crumb for me to steal!
But then a miracle happened! The TV was on (The Hoarder always had the TV on) and there was a Special Bulletin saying that a big snowstorm was coming, a BLIZZARD, and everyone needed to get ready because there was a good chance we were all going to lose our power, and it was going to get really cold.
The Hoarder dropped that Swiss Colony box right where she stood and started running around frantically, looking for blankets and coats that she knew she had “somewhere,” and while she ran all around like a crazy person, I scurried over to the box and grabbed one WHOLE Petit Four that was completely chocolate and had a giant T on the top. The T was part of the word “Christmas,” because the candies spelled out “Merry Christmas,” but as far as I was concerned, that T was for TRIXIE and that candy was MINE!
I hurried back to my corner by the window and hid, so afraid that The Hoarder would find out that I had stolen her candy. But she never did. She didn’t even think about her box of Christmas candies until many hours later when she had piled all kinds of coats and blankets around her on the chair she always slept on, and popped open a can of beer and finished off all those delicious candies, burping and snoring when she was all done.
The blizzard came, the power went out, and the house got cold, very cold. But in a little while the clouds cleared, and the moon came out very brightly. The Hoarder was still asleep in her chair, still snoring to beat the band, and it was then and only then that I took out my Petit Four and finally feasted on the most delicious candy I have ever tasted!
It was like a candy, but it was also like a very tiny piece of cake. It was both beautiful and tasty! I ate it slowly, and made it last as long as I could, telling myself the whole time that SOMEDAY I would eat another. Someday, I wouldn’t have to sneak and steal just to have a taste of candy. Someday, I might even get a piece of candy as a gift, meant especially for me!
And that day came when I got to Whimsieville! Last Halloween, we Whimsies all dressed up in costumes (I was a Pirate!) and even though we told you we didn’t go Trick or Treating because we don’t eat candy…well, that was only partially true. In fact, we did not go Trick or Treating, mostly because there might be dogs in the neighborhood, and Tessie was afraid, but Miss Chrissy had quite a bit of candy left over after serving up all the 
Trick-or-Treaters that came to our front door. Miss Chrissy reached deep into the bowl and gave each of us a piece of candy. And you’ll never guess what I got! No, not a Petit Four. I got a Snickers! My very own Snickers!
This Halloween I’d love another Snickers. And this Christmas, I hope Miss Chrissy gets The Swiss Colony catalog, and lets us all look at it, and if I could have one Christmas wish, it’s that Miss Chrissy will order candy from The Swiss Colony, and it will come to us in a beautiful green or red box, or perhaps a golden tin, and when we open it, there will be so much chocolate inside, I will just about faint. And then I want to eat so much chocolate that I get a tummy ache.
THAT would not be a bad way to spend Christmas.
