The First Day of Chocolate

As I've mentioned before, I'm into titles. A good title on a book will catch my attention way before any artwork will. As such, I'm always jotting down ideas for titles. I usually lose these. Until I find them again years later and have to stare at the paper for five minutes trying to figure out what all the disparate phrases mean. Sometimes, I even think of stories to go with the titles or, at least, chapters, which is almost just as good.

Children end up being a good source for these kinds of things, and, lately, my daughter has been an especially good source. It all started last Christmas.

We got our kids Advent calendars for the first time last year. Not expensive ones or anything, just some little things we picked up with a Christmas shaped chocolate candy for each day. Yeah, you didn't know Christmas had a shape, did you? Well, it does. But I'm not telling you what it is. Anyway, at some point during the whole Advent thing last year, my daughter said something about the first day of chocolate, and it made me laugh and, then, it made me write it down. It's a great line.

And I've spent the last year trying to come up with a story to go with the title "The First Day of Chocolate," but, you know what, I haven't come up with a single thing. Or, rather, I've come up with a lot of things that I've immediately discarded. At any rate, I haven't come up with any ideas that I felt were worthwhile. Of course, my daughter knows I wrote it down, and, every so often, she asks me if I've written that story yet, and I have to tell her no. That's probably more disappointing to me than it is to her, because I hate having a great title with no story to go with it.

I have a list of things she's said in this past year that are title ideas, but I'm not gonna share any more of them with you. They're mine, I tell you, mine! Hopefully, some day, I'll start putting them to use.

So... here we are, and it's "The First Day of Chocolate." Yes, it is. And, yes, that's permission to go get yourself a piece. Preferably something dark and minty, but, really, just go with what you like best. If you're a woman, I bet you don't even have far to go from where you're sitting to get a piece. Yeah, my wife's gonna hit me when she reads that part, but I'm pretty sure it's worth it. Now, I'm not gonna tell you that you should follow this holiday and have chocolate everyday; that's for you to decide, but you should certainly have a piece on this first day of this wonderful chocolate holiday.

So...
Merry Christmas everyone, and have a wonderful First Day of Chocolate!!!