Santa Cruz County

Love is like a cupid arrow, it can end up in many places. “The Gift of the Magi” a short story by O. Henery, models a theme through direct and indirect characterization with two characters, Della and Jim Dillingham Young, who reveal the everlasting theme of love. When we are first introduced to Della through direct characterization, she gets an idea that could her more cash to buy her Jim a worthy present she has been struggling to find for Christmas Eve; selling her breathtaking hair to Madame…

Everybody loves holidays. I mean who couldn’t? However, which one do you like just a little bit more? How about we look at a couple of the biggest holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Christmas is obviously the best holiday ever. From how long you get off school or work, to the food groups you focus in on for that holiday, to who figuratively or literally comes to your home. If I gave one the option of more or less, almost always one would choose more. Its just an instinct, who wouldn't want…

Irony helps to develop a theme of selflessness in the short story “The Gift of the Magi” as O. Henry reveals the misfortune behind the story. Near the conclusion of the story irony is frequently used to show the pure misfortune of the tale. Since Jim “sold the watch to get the money to buy [the] combs”, and “the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone” it’s easy to see the pure misfortune and irony of the situation (Henry, 5). However, through this misfortune we also…

The elf stays in sight of the children in the house all day and at night time the story states that the elf will fly back to the North Pole and report to Santa (who is referred to as, The Boss,) on how the children of the household have behaved. A line many kids would hear from their parents, and on I heard from my parents as a child, “Santa is watching,” every now and then, but this takes that to a whole new level of…

Immersed in a Thousand Shades of Adolescence The thick feeling of confusion and overwhelming anxiety interspersed with fear all contribute to test one’s ability to withstand the spice of life strived in adolescence. To Every Thing There Is a Season by Alistair MacLeod is a coming of age story “seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy, who as an adult remembers the way things were back home on the farm on the west coast of Cape Breton” (Penguin Random House). Along the lines of the story…

Evading jabs, dodging roundhouse kicks, struggling to keep up. This was the hardest sparring match I had ever faced in my life. Not only, because of the physical aspect, but also the mental restraint. THUMP. I felt as if I had collided with a freight truck right in the stomach. Losing my balance and eventually falling, time momentarily stopped. Who could this mighty opponent I was facing? It was the person most similar to me. A “mini-me,” as most would say: black hair, brown eyes, brown skin,…

Christmas in Georgia Everyone has a favorite childhood memory that shines vivid in their mind, mine is not an extravagant foreign vacation or skydiving from a plane at 30,000 feet It is simply a family trip to Atlanta, Georgia. Family has always been something my mother tried to make an important part of my upbringing, but to me it was nothing more than a word with an unknown meaning. In her attempts to draw us closer together, my mother planned a trip for us to drive 10 hours across states to…

lie. Most of the time, individuals do not want to tell the truth about their past. Majority of the time the truth does come out because in some cases, they feel guilty. In Francis Churches letter to Virginia, he did not fully answer her question if Santa Claus wa real or…

Christmas, the 25th of December, is the most important festival of the year. Celebrated by most countries in the world, Christmas is a time of shopping, taking a break from work, connecting with friends and family, and reflecting on the year. Though most Christians view it is a day in honor of God to remember and celebrate the birth of His Son, taking a closer look and an investigative perspective draws parallels with pagan customs practiced long before Christ was born. In this essay, I will…

Santa Claus: The Man of Many Stories Santa Claus has been a hero to kids in many countries and civilizations for centuries. Many children have had the wonderful fantasies of meeting or being Santa Claus and have thought of Christmas as the most wonderful time of the year. Santa is always thought of by his giving gifts and eating cookies, but sometimes people forget that Santa is based off a catholic saint, Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas was elected to act as Bishop of Myra, now present day…