Happy Thanksgiving to You; Happy Birthday to My Dad

I'm not sure what the mathematical equation is to figure out how often Thanksgiving falls on a particular date but I know that there were times when Thanksgiving would fall on the same day as my Dad's birthday - this year would have been one of them were my Dad still with us. Unfortunately, he's not but that doesn't keep him from being remembered not just this year but every year when November 25th rolls around.

So on what would have been my father's 76th birthday, I wish you all the happiest of Thanksgiving Days here in the United States as you gather with family and friends and celebrate the blessings of the past year as we hurtle rapidly towards a new year. Ferris Bueller wasn't kidding when he said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." ... Don't miss it!

Dad & I - August 1991

Thanksgiving Reflections

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.

If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something,

for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.

During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,

because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,

because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.

They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,

because it means you've made a difference.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things.

A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who

are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles,

and they can become your blessings.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

So it turned out that yesterday at work wasn't too bad; the usual amount of 911 calls that always seem to roll in right around 1:00 p.m., a good number of paramedic intercepts for towns where their 911 calls rolled in right around 1:00 p.m., and a few too many routine transfers out of hospitals for a holiday but when they need the beds cleared out so that new patients can be put in them, it doesn't matter what day the calendar says it is.

Later in the evening my dispatch partner and I were treated to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of my friend Amy who had gone all out in the kitchen this year.  She sent over turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes (with or without sausage and onion - Jeff had both), green beans sauteed in garlic, carrot and turnip mashed together (quite yummy!), cranberry sauce, a roll, and gravy.  It was heaven on a paper plate and Jeff and I both enjoyed it thoroughly.  It's great to have good friends who don't forget you on special days!  Thanks again, Amy! 

By the time I got home last night I was pretty tired but decided to spend a little time on the computer before hitting the hay; I find that a little Bejeweled on Facebook will tire me right out and I can sleep quite nicely with visions of colored jewels lining up in my dreams!  I think I was more tired than I thought, though, as while looking for another webpage, I came across a site called House Removals Company and I really had to laugh as the only thing I could think of was the scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East ... I bet she could have really used a house removals company then I totally cracked myself up and couldn't stop laughing ... it was shortly after that I turned the computer off and went to sleep!

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful!

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

From our home to yours - may this day set aside for thanks and gratitude be full of good food, good friends, and good memories to last you all year through!

And for our non-American friends - let the Christmas season now begin!

Kitchen Mathematics

For those in the mathematics world, pi equals 3.14159265 and is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space - the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius.

Yea ... okay ... in my world pi(e) equals ...



... whose value is made up of some of the following ingredients ...



... which forms a circle whose diameter equals some mouth-watering Thanksgiving deliciousness!

I'll be spending most of today in the kitchen working on the mathematics of pie as I bake up several apple pies with crumb topping, a pumpkin pie, and experiment with an apple-cranberry pie recipe that a certain blogger emailed me about a week or so ago.  While I'm in there I may throw in a batch of brownies just for good measure!

Hope everyone has a terrific Tuesday in your whatever part of the world you're in!

The Holy Trinity of Holidays Has Become Hallothanksmas

Way back in the time of the dinosaurs when I was a kid, holidays had a natural progression that spanned three months and didn't overlap at all.  Halloween was the first holiday and eagerly anticipated not just because of the sugary loot that we knew would be ours after ringing on a lot of doorbells but also for the excitement of what we were going to dress up as.  Carved Jack O' Lanterns, scarecrows stuffed with leaves, Kleenex ghosts, scary stories, and fun parties were all a part of one of the best holidays ever.

Thanksgiving was next in line with construction paper Pilgrim hats, turkeys drawn by tracing our hands, and a big meal where family and friends gathered around the table for the best feast of the year.  Mom's best dishes were broken out of storage, you could eat as much as you wanted without getting yelled at, and items like cranberry sauce, mini-gherkins, and olives made an appearance on the table for perhaps the first and only time of the year in a cut-glass dish that you always forgot even existed! 

Not until Santa arrived at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade did Christmas come into play.  The day after Thanksgiving was when Christmas lights began to shine all over the place, carols were sung on the radio and everywhere else, the Nativity scene appeared in front of the local church, pagaents were reheased and performed at school, and you could go to the store to visit Santa and climb onto his lap, tell him what you wanted for Christmas, and maybe even walk away with a small candy cane secure in the knowledge that he'd do his best to get you your heart's desire. Christmas Eve could never come quick enough or be over soon enough as you waited in anticipation of Christmas morning to see what might be under the tree.  It truly was magic and the most wonderful time of the year.

Now that I'm older the Holy Trinity of Holidays that I remember as a kid all seem to have blurred into one big holiday called Hallothanksmas - overlapping and wrapping around each other so much that you can hardly tell where one ends and the other begins.  I have to be honest with you - I don't like it.

I hate the fact that when you go into a store two weeks before Halloween you're confronted with shelves and shelves of Christmas items already jockeying for place next to the plastic pumpkins and costumes and I hate it even worse when even before the ghosts and ghouls have had a chance to return to whence they came, stores have now moved into full-blown Christmas attack mode and TV commercials have done the same.  Alas, Thanksgiving seems to be completely lost in the shuffle as the media starts to make their predictions for whether retailers are going to have a naughty or nice year and Hollywood pumps out holiday movies as soon as possible to also cash in on the bountiful spending of the season.

It's all very sad if you ask me and I want my separate holidays back.  I don't want my holiday cheer to be drowned in the commerciality of the season where the focus now seems to be more on what you want and what you get.  That's not what the holiday season is supposed to be about but retailers seem to run right over Thanksgiving in their hurry to cash in on their own tidings of great joy in the form of greater consumer spending.

I know it's never going to happen but I really wish that we could enjoy November and Thanksgiving before Christmas encroaches.  I don't know when the holidays all changed but I sure do miss having one in October, one in November, and one in Dcember.  I can't possibly be the only one, can I?

Thanksgiving Thoughts 2008

Every great once in awhile my bestest friend MizCyn (whose birthday it is today!) will come out of hiding and leave a comment or two - like she did yesterday - or call me at strange hours of the night to ask me random questions out of nowhere - like she did late Monday night just as I was falling asleep! I never mind when she does these things even though the alarm was set for 4:30 in order to get Amanda to the airport because she's Cyndi and I love her and because sometimes I do the same things to her!

Her question of great import the other night was "What are you thankful for this year?" and even though I had asked the same question of you, my readers, last week I hadn't answered the question myself so I had to think for a minute before I told her, "I'm happy to still be treading water." One of the best things about having a bestest friend that you've known for years and who sometimes knows you better than you know yourself is that this required no explanation at all as Cyndi knew exactly what I was talking about and said that's why she loved me and we were best friends even though we were so opposite in some ways as she was thankful for the very same thing. I knew she would understand.

Sometimes I think that's the best I'm going to do anymore - keep my head above water and not go down for the third time. When I look at the current economic situation that our country is in and see how many people are not keeping their heads above water I can't help but think that it could very easily be me in the same position - having a home in foreclosure, not having a car parked out front because it got towed away, unable to provide food and shelter for myself and my daughter ... sure, I work a lot of overtime in order to keep the lights turned on, the bills more or less paid, and Amanda in hair products but unlike a lot of other people, I have the opportunity to work that overtime at my primary job as well as pick up hours at my second job. I do know how lucky I am even when I'm working a crazy schedule that barely gives me 8 hours in between shifts to try to recharge.

I'm treading water - have been for years - and even though there are times when I'd like to just give it up and sink, I am thankful that I have the ability to stay afloat not just when it comes to finances but also with my back issues and my mental and emotional state. Maybe sometimes that's the best we can ask for because things could be so much worse and, sadly, they are for a lot of other people. And maybe ... just maybe ... sometimes it's easier to be thankful for what we don't have as opposed to what we do.

"... I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." - President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3rd, 1863

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and a very Happy Birthday to Cyndi whom I am very thankful to still have as a friend after all these years and the distance that separates us. I love you!

I've Got a Question - You've Got an Answer

In just one week, we here in the United States will celebrate our country's 145th Thanksgiving Day since the last Thursday of the month was proclaimed to be a National Day of Thanksgiving by then President Abraham Lincoln in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation which was issued on the 3rd day of October in 1863.

Even though Thanksgiving services had been held in Virginia as early as 1607, America's very first Thanksgiving Festival, and the one that we all associate the holiday with, was a three-day feast which began on December 13th, 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The feast gave the Pilgrims, who had much to be thankful for, an opportunity to praise God and to celebrate with their Indian friends after they had reaped a bountiful harvest following a very rough first winter and spring in their new land.

It wasn't until 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, that America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution and that the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities."

Most Thanksgiving services and observances still only occurred at the State level until many years later when Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, finally found a President who responded to her petitioning for an annual National Thanksgiving Day. For thirty years, Mrs. Hale promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting one President after another, until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a National Day of Thanksgiving.

Over the next seventy-five years, future Presidents followed Lincoln's precedent by annually declaring a National Thanksgiving Day until Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday in 1941 thus ending the need for an annual proclamation to be made.

Is it any wonder then that Abraham Lincoln is my very favorite President? Who else took the time to set aside one day out of the year when we not only take the time to remember that which we are most thankful for but can eat ourselves silly in the process? It's time to reflect upon the year that has almost passed, to perhaps gather with family and friends and share the bounty of love and friendship, and to maybe just slow down a little bit from life's regular hectic pace. Unless, of course, you happen to work for some heartless retailer who thinks it's necessary to stay open on a formerly "everything's closed" holiday and try to wring every last penny possible out of a struggling economy.

However, that's just my opinion which at long last brings me to the question of this post (I bet you thought I'd forgotten what the title of this post was, didn't ya?!) ...

What are you most thankful for this year?

Just because it's an American holiday that we'll be celebrating next week doesn't mean you need to be an American to answer this question; I don't think you have to have a designated National Day of Thanksgiving in order to be thankful. As a matter of fact, we should be thankful on a regular basis for all that we have in our lives. Sometimes, though, I think we just tend to forget the good as we get so overwhelmed with the bad but for now let's say we put the bad aside and concentrate on the good, shall we??

A Thanksgiving Proclamation

We here in the United States tend to get carried away with pilgrims and turkeys and overabundant feasts at the end of November while those of us who live in New England like to smugly think that it was our very own ancestors who celebrated the very first Thanksgiving Day and no one else. Sometimes traditions are hard to break and those things that are drilled into our heads during our early formative school years are hard to put aside.

Though it's quite likely that the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 did have some sort of Harvest Feast with the Native Americans who populated this part of the country (before they were beat back into submission and forgotten about until they resurrected themselves and started building massive casinos), Thanksgiving was not proclaimed as a National Holiday until 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. Encouraged by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor of her day, it was he who set apart the last Thursday of November as a day of "National Thanksgiving and Praise".

To that end, when you sit down tomorrow at your dinner table that is virtually groaning under the weight of all of the good food heaped upon it with all of your family and friends surrounding it and bow your heads or join hands to give thanks, please remember to say thank you to one of this country's greatest Presidents who proclaimed that you should have a day off to do those things.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and eat a piece of pumpkin pie for me and Abe!

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward
Secretary of State

I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer

***************************

First off, a big thank you to everyone who left a comment on my post previous to this one! I appreciate all of your encouragement but I did want to point out that it wasn't my mother who made the comment about me reliving my teenage years through Amanda, she was just relaying something that my younger cousin had said to her own mother. Also, I wasn't looking for criticism of my cousin's words as she is certainly entitled to her own opinion, I was just looking to see what others thought - after all, I write a lot of posts about the things I do with Amanda and Jamie, when she's here, so I figure you've all probably read lots and lots on that subject and would probably have an opinion! I'm glad to see that so many think I'm doing okay by my daughters and - trust me - I'm definitely not hanging out with Amanda and her friends (though a few of her friends are also listed as my friends on the MySpace page I have). Anyhow, enough said and on to this week's question!

With Thanksgiving only a week away, this week's question is pretty much a no-brainer but basically geared towards my American friends as those of you in England and Canada that read are probably wondering what all the fuss is about every November!

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

I'm afraid that I will be doing the same thing I was doing last year - working. Having a 24/7/365 job it's inevitable that there are going to be some holidays that have to be worked and for some reason, I always seem to be working Thanksgiving. Though it generally starts out slow, the day seems to invariably get busier as time goes on (least ways, that's what happened last year) but I'm hoping this year that won't happen. I'd be thankful for a quiet day!

Alright then - over to you!