Sneakers

Mannequins are wonderful props for adding life to your store displays. With proper lighting and a few inventive ideas you can really make a mannequin come alive. Consider the difference in a little girl mannequin wearing a pretty Christmas dress and the same little girl opening a gift, discovering the teddy bear of her dreams and her parents looking lovingly on her. Emotion will really get your customers into the Christmas spirit. Tug at their heartstrings a little and it could really pay off.

The first step is to choose the outfits that you would like to display. Layering works great on mannequins and you can feature many different products at once. Be careful not to overdo it. You don’t want to detract attention away from the feeling that you’re going to convey. Children mannequins and life-like baby dolls are great for getting to parents’ hearts. Imagine children sleeping in their beds, while Dad dressed as Santa sneaks a kiss. This can be a very touching scene, especially if Mom is watching this tender moment. The more emotions you can display, the more memorable and effective your display will be.

The use of animals is effective as well. Let’s say that the child is receiving his first puppy for Christmas. The puppy sneaking out of the box is cute, but keep the emotion in mind. The little boy plays a major part in pulling this scene together. He could discover the puppy after it destroyed its box and be shocked. He could sneak down early and play with the puppy as Santa’s legs are disappearing up the chimney. His parents could discover him downstairs curled up asleep with the puppy by the fire. The puppy could have escaped the gift and went to sleep with the little boy in his bed. The possibilities are really endless.

If you don’t specialize in children’s clothing, you could go for a romantic approach. A husband and wife snuggled up opening gifts shows a lot more affection than two mannequins standing wearing clothes. If you don’t want to get elaborate, a simple touch can be meaningful. Mannequins facing straight forward doesn’t really mean anything. A woman walking away and a man sneaking a small gift wrapped box into her pocket has meaning. Angled mannequins are generally more appealing to the eye than dead-on straight forward ones. Another idea is to have the man and woman meeting. She drops her gifts and as he’s helping her recover, they exchange a long stare, or he presents her with an engagement ring.

Plan out your display far enough in advance to order what ever props you may need. Decide on which emotion you would like to portray and go for it. You can even select the holiday music in your store to match the theme. Don’t forget about the lighting. A dimly lit display draws very little attention, no matter how imaginative the theme is. Have fun with it and don’t hold back. Enjoy your holiday season and make the most of your front window displays.

Smoking is like being married, there are days when you hate it and other days when it’s the best thing in your life. The only difference between smoking and marriage is that it’s easier to get divorced than it is to quit smoking.

I’ve been a regular smoker since i was 11 years old and my aunt, god bless her, let me smoke with her. I grew up in a family of smokers and it always looked glamrous and mature. I wanted so much to be like my mom and my aunts. I was the little kid that would always hold a crayon between my fingers or a straw and pretend i was holding a cigarette. I was the little girl that always wanted to be grown up.

My Aunt Marge lived two doors down from us and she was always the “cool aunt.” She was divored and didn’t have any kids so she always thought of me as her own. She would always be the one to take me shopping and buy me things.She’d always let me take sips of her coffee or whatever she was drinking at the time. She loved spoiling me and unlike my mom, Aunt Marge never said no to me. To me Aunt Marge was the most beautiful most fun person I knew at the time. Aunt Marge loved her coffee and you hardly ever saw Aunt Marge without a pall mall betweeen her fingers.

I would always watch Aunt Marge as she’d take that long glamorous drag off her cigarette and thinking how I wish I was allowed to do that. As I got older probably about 9 or 10 I’d take butts out of the ash tray and pretend I was smoking. My mom would just glare at me and say put that down.

It didn’t take long before I was sneaking the butts and going out behind our garage and trying to smoke them. At first it was only once in a while whenever i felt brave enough and didn’t think I would get caught. But soon it got to the point where I was sneaking cigarettes out of my mom’s pack and smoking whole ones. The longer i snuck cigarettes the braver i got and being 11 I thought I was so smart and didn’t think anyone knew what I was doing out behind the garage.

One weekend I was over at my aunts house and we were sitting on her couch watching tv. As she reached for her cigarettes she looked at me and said, Bee Bee (which is what she called me), would you like a cigarette. I’m sure I had a look of horror on my face as I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think anyone knew I had started smoking. I just told her no and I remember saying I had to go to the bathroom. I did not want to have that conversation with anyone, not even Aunt Marge. I’m sure I was shaking because I was thinking how did she know or why would she offer me a cigarette. After i came back from the bathroom she said Bee Bee it’s ok I know you smoke, you can have a cigarette, I won’t get mad at you. She passed me her lit cigarette and said go ahead we’ll just keep it our secret for now.

Obviously after that, I spent alot more time over at Aunt Marge’s house and and I didn’t have to sneak out behind the garage to have my nicotine fix. Because my Aunt lived so close, I was able to keep my smoking habit from almost everyone else for two years. By then my older sister had started smoking with mom’s permission and that allowed me to come clean with mom, who wasn’t happy at all but she did accept it, and she never found out that Aunt Marge was letting me smoke with her since I was 11.

Now I want to quit, and although I’ve tried a number of times over the years this time I have made up my mind I will do it. My quit date is March 1st and although I do love my cigarettes it’s time to say good by to them. Oh and Aunt Marge is now 52 yrs old, still smokes her pall malls and she’s still one of my closest friends.

A little girl and her mother were out and about.

Out of the blue, the girl asked her mother, “Mommy, How old are you?”

The mother responded, “Honey, women don’t talk about their age. You’ll learn this as you get older.”

The girl then asked, “Mommy, how much do you weigh?”

Her mother responded again, “That’s another thing women don’t talk about. You’ll learn this, too, as you grow up.”

The girl, still wanting to know about her mother, then fired off another question, “Mommy, why did you and Daddy get a divorce?”

The mother, a little annoyed by the questions, responded, “Honey, that is a subject that hurts me very much, and I don’t want to talk about it now.”

The little girl, frustrated, sulked until she was dropped off at a friend’s house to play. She consulted with her girlfriend about her and her mother’s conversation.

The girlfriend said, “All you have to do is sneak a look at your mother’s driver’s license. It’s just a like a report card from school. It tells you everything.”

Later, the little girl and her mother were out and about again.

The little girl started off with, “Mommy, Mommy, I know how old you are. I know how old you are. You’re 32 years old.”

The mother was very shocked. She asked, “Sweetheart, how do you know that?”

The little girl shrugged and said, “I just know. And I know how much you weigh. You weigh 130 pounds.”

“Where did you learn that?”

The little girl said, “I just know. And I know why you and Daddy got a divorce. You got an ‘F’ in sex.”