Dear Ms.Garr,

I’m so excited that I met you! My name is Victoria. Writing and Reading are my favorite subjects. I am athletic and fun. I try my best at everything. My favorite activities are soccer, basketball, and art. Even when I was two years old I loved art. I like pottery, painting, drawing, and sketching.  While I’m creating my artwork,  I make a huge mess! My birthday is January 25. It’s coming up soon. I’m turning 10 this year. I have two older sisters. One is Ally she is 15 years old. My other sister is 12. Her name is Jackie. I’m the youngest in my family. I have a dog who is 4 years old. She is a long haired Akita. She looks like a Husky. Her name is Teddy Bear. She is very hyper when she gets excited but then she lays down on her bed. She is huge. Dogs are my favorite animal. See you soon!  I’ll really miss Mrs. Kolbert, but I am very excited to have you as a teacher too!

Christmas is a wonderful holiday that my family celebrates We have many family traditions.  On the first day of December, my oldest sister, Ally, reads a Christmas story to me.  Also, I help , my mother make Christmas cookies. We make homemade peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies. On December 11, my family went to the Fort Lauderdale Christmas Pageant. That’s one of my favorite family’s Christmas tradition. There is amazing singing, dancing, and acting, they even have camels, horses, donkeys, goats and lambs!   Even though we go to North Carolina for Christmas, we still decorate here in Florida. We put our lights up, Christmas tree, and wreaths. I go Christmas shopping for my family. I use my own money that I earned doing chores.  I get my family valuable gifts that they will treasure forever. I also get my friends gifts for being kind and friendly. My family gives my neighbors and security staff at our community gifts too. I love to give gifts, it makes be happy that I gave a person one. I wrap the gifts I buy myself.  Another thing that my family does in December is to drive up to North Carolina to have a home spun Christmas. It takes 12 hours, but its worth it! If you were there you would be amazed to see the exquisite view with all the mountains and trees. Sometimes it even snows. We get a Christmas tree in our little cabin and we decorate it till there’s no more room for ornaments. We even make homemade ornaments. We set up our stockings then we take a delicious drink of hot chocolate and eat some minty candy canes. Every night, we watch a Christmas.  This year we are making a homemade gingerbread house. Yum, that makes my mouth water!

On Christmas Eve,  Santa comes to our cabin and he sings songs, dances and he gives us a few presents. Santa always encourages us to continue to help others who are needy. He eats his cookies and when he is leaving our porch, we take some carrots and some dry oatmeal (with magic glitter) and throw it up in the air for the reindeer to eat. One year we think we saw Rudolph when we saw a red light in the sky.    After Santa leaves we go to midnight mass at church. We go to an 150 year old church with beautiful stain glass on the windows. On Christmas day, we open up our presents and have a wonderful time. My mother prepares a fantastic dinner.   On Christmas Night, we watch the story of Jesus’ life.  Jesus was born on Christmas. Christmas is not about presents at all, it is about Jesus’ birthday, having family time and having fun. The wise men followed the bright north star to find baby Jesus.  The gave presents of gold, mur,and frankincense to honor him . Today, we give presents on Christmas to family and friends like wise men gave gifts to honor Jesus’ birth.   When Jesus grew, he became a teacher, healer and is still still role model for people of all religions all around the world.  Jesus is my hero.

Last Christmas in Norther Carolina it snowed so much, that we couldn’t get up the hill to our little cabin. After driving over 750  miles, we had to find a hotel to spend for the night. Luckily, we found a hotel that had a room and the staff  treated us very well. Even though it was past midnight, they offered us food to eat and they let us watch a Christmas movie called The Christmas Cottage, it was great!  The next day, my dad shoveled the road and made a parking spot for our truck at the base of the hill. We couldn’t drive up the hill to our cottage, because it was too steep and was not plowed.  We took up many trips of things up the hill. My neighbor had a four wheeler so we used it to take up my grandmother and other loads of things. Later, with my dad, I made a gigantic snowman. It was bigger than him!  Since my dad is an engineer and loves to build, he made the snowman perfect. I know nothing is perfect, but it looked perfect. We used all sorts of things for the face. For example, we used a old doorknob for a nose. We used my scarf, but it stretched it out. I love snow. After we did that, we were exhausted! Since it was so snowy, we couldn’t go to church so we had a little church service at our cabin. We read verses from the bible,sang songs, and played Christmas songs on the piano.  We have a little property on the lake. It is beautiful. When its winter, we have bonfires and cook marshmallows. I like mine as black as a asteroid. My dad cooks hot dogs, hamburgers, and other meats on a little grill.  I play piano and  I play all sorts of Christmas music. At my church in Florida, I played the song Joy to the World. I also know how to play Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Away in the Manger, Jingle Bells, and a lot more.  Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year!!!

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I have to do chores to learn responsibility and how to survive for when I’m older. On every Tuesday and Friday, I have to do all dishes and clean the whole kitchen. On Friday I have take out all trash, replace the garbage bags, and bring the the trash cans and recycle bins to the road. Each week, I have to do 6 hours of chores. If I don’t finish my chores, I can’t do anything on the weekend. For rest of the weekend i finish the rest of the chores. If I don’t finish,I have to do it the following week. It might sound bad and a not fun thing to do, but I would rather do it then not knowing how to live without my parents for when I’m older.

I live in an exquisite place where the sunshine shines down, interesting bugs crawl or flutter by, palm trees and other beautiful plants are all around and more! I go to an fantastic educated school, where they teach you things that you learn in higher level grades! I learn all types of subjects such as: writing, reading, spelling, grammar, math, science, and social studies. Everyday we have a different special class such as: art, p.e, guidance, science, media and more stellar classes. My teacher is phenomenal. We do awesome projects. We read the Adventures of Teddy Bodain and Teddy is on a wagon train going to Florida. She is leaving her best friend Martha. Teddy writes to Martha very single day. In one of the letters, Teddy wrote that she and her family made homemade butter. The took some milk from their cow Girlie which is walking on the back of the wagon and they skimmed the milk till it turned into cream. Then, they put the cream in a jar. After that, they put a pinch of salt in to the jar and shook the jar till it turned into butter. Before it turns to butter, it turns to whipped cream without all the sugar. So, in my class we made homemade butter. We put it on bread and ate it. It was delicious! I love my class!!

Get ready for a spooky, scary, freaky night!  October 31, 2010, Is a night full of screams. Dress up in your costumes and trick or treat all night for candy! Be anything you want for Halloween. Beware Ghosts, witches, goblins and more , they will spook you through the night. Trust me, you don’t want to trick or treat at a haunted house. If you do, you would be scared for the rest of you life! If you want to scare kids that are trick or treating in your neighborhood …buy pumpkins and carve a scary face.  Speaking about pumpkins, you could make pumpkin pie or pumpkin seeds. The sound of that is making me really hungry.

If you want, comment about  what you want to be for Halloween. Is it scary or not?