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"Part of what I enjoy the most is watching people enjoy them," he says.

"The magic is just something you gotta believe in," Cole says.

For as long as you look up and believe, there will be magic.

Merry Christmas.

Last December, I visited Magnolia Glen to meet some women who made blankets for Project Linus. While I was there, I met Lillian Desiderio, knitter extraordinaire, and her husband, Frank. After 67 years of marriage, Lillian and Frank were infectiously in love, and I was smitten.

For decades, Frank made wooden toys and Lillian knitted sweaters for all the children they didn't have. Every day, Frank went down to his woodworking shop to make toys and birdhouses. On Sunday, Sept. 25, Frank lost a brief battle with pneumonia and left his woodworking tools idle for the first time in decades.

At his memorial service Oct. 1, I met his great-niece, Deb Allen, who had called me from Michigan to tell me of his death. Outside on the patio at Magnolia Glen, birds flitted around one of the many birdhouses that Frank made, while inside the craft room, some 60 people wiped tears from their eyes as a color guard handed a triangulated American flag to Lillian in recognition of Frank's Bronze Star service during World War II. As Tim Rothbauer said in his tribute, "We are better people for having known Uncle Frank."

To read the love story of Frank and Lillian, see www.newsobserver.com, key word notions, and find the Dec. 24, 2004, column. To pay respects to the life of Frank Desiderio, you may send donations to Hospice of Wake County.

To help Lillian knit her way into comfort, you might drop by with some yarn: Lillian is not very particular, but she does prefer yarn that doesn't squeak. Her friend, Mavis White, knows how to turn fabric into quilts for Project Linus -- just so you know. In times of great loss, we can all use a little security blanket.

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