The Evening Rambler for the last day of November 2013

I'm making this up as I go along, so I don't know what direction it will take.  Welcome to live blogging!

We had a good Thanksgiving, my family went to my mother-in-law's and we had a good visit.  Traditional food was the order of the day, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, cole slaw, rolls, cranberry sauce, celery stuffed with creamed cheese, and of course pies.  Two choices this year, pumpkin and chocolate.  As I do every year, I asked for a small slice of both since I couldn't decide.  And that's not a lie, I didn't want to pass one of them up.  One of these years I might just choose one, and everyone will look at me funny and ask if I feel all right.

There's an old saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it too".  No cake though, as I mentioned Thanksgiving was a day for pie.  The early results are in, and it seems like the old saying applies to pie as well.

So I've been trying to come up with more stories.  A few days ago, I thought of a dialogue that could happen between just some average guy, and an alien.  It went on for a while, and I thought it was pretty clever.  At the last, the alien starts to walk off (presumably to his spaceship), and said, "You won't see me again".

It had possibilities, and now I sure wish I could recall their conversation.  I have got to start carrying a notepad at all times and write this stuff down while it's fresh.

It was a nice fall day today.  The fall season ran kind of late here, but by now all the colors are over and most of the leaves are down.  Except for the big pin oak tree in my front yard.  It will release leaves a few batches at a time, and it's liable to still have some old leaves to drop through the winter and maybe as late as the first of spring.  It does that most every year.  What are you gonna do?

Tomorrow December begins, and it seems like a clean break between Thanksgiving and the Advent / Christmas season this year.  For me, anyway.  I know shopping and running around will happen, but I'm not in a panic about that.  We have our tree up and the lights put on; the boxes of ornaments have been brought up from the archives.  We're poised to begin.

How about a slide show?

I've got the projector and screen all set up and ready to go!

"Bob, you're not going to show the old Colorado trip slides again?  Everybody's seen all those!"
"No, no...just a few slides in honor of Mike's birthday."

(Click of the power knob being turned to ON, the soft whirring of the cooling fan, and the sounds of the projector being adjusted so the picture's in the center of the screen.)

"Okay, this is actually a card we got from the Scowdens one Christmas."

"Aww!"

(Cli-CLICK!)

"This one's from Thanksgiving 1973 at our place."

"Look who's right out in front?"

"Yep.  That was a fun time."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"Ha!"

"Oops, gotta do that at least once.  Hang on, I'll get it."

(Sounds of the projector mechanism being opened manually, and the slide holder being removed, the slide being taken out, turned, and being re-inserted, and everything being put back right.)

(Cli-CLICK!)

"So okay, that's Mike and Kathy at the...wait, that must be from a few years ago.  That looks like a different house than the one they're in now.  I think."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"What's he doing here?"





"I think he was explaining to Victoria how McDonald's gets the eggs round for Egg McMuffins.  Mike knows all kinds of stuff like that."

"What I want to know Bob, is how you remember trivia like that years later."

"Not sure.  Kind of scary, huh?"

(Cli-CLICK!)

"This...and the one before too...were taken at Aunt Timmy's 80th birthday celebration."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"Well, not quite as bad as the other one.  Wait a sec."

(Sounds of the projector mechanism etc., etc., etc.)

(Cli-CLICK!)

"There we go.  Dave and Mike, same evening."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"The gang!"

But you know, what's weird is that I couldn't find any of Mike on one of his birthdays.

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

Mike, I hope you had a Happy Birthday!  With cake.  And all.

It's that time of year again

I assume they held the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again, but I didn't tune in to any of it.  Early in the day, my wife went to her mom's to help prepare the festivities, and I got up sorta kinda early to see if I could finish up my leaf blowing and outdoor Christmas light connecting.  The front part of the house looks good now, and all the lights in front are in place except for a string of 50 LED lights destined for a bush near our door.  Just ran out of time, before it was time to go over to Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a small, simple gathering, six of us, but we all had our favorite Thanksgiving fare.  It was a quiet, restful afternoon and evening.

Not much else to say, but I did want to re-post a link to what I wrote on Thanksgiving 2008.  I'll even ask the question again...what characters would you like to see made into those big Macy's Thanksgiving helium balloons?

Happy Thanksgiving!

3:45 p.m. CST: I've decided to use a kind of "facebook" approach this year; several small entries to mark the day. I will be adding more; they'll all appear here under the same date. For now, I'll wish you all a healthy and thankful day...whether you're with extended family, just your own family, friends, or by yourself. Even when we think we don't have a lot to be thankful for, especially then, we have a lot to be thankful for even if we don't realize it right away.

I'm thankful for the last two days. Our family has had a couple of get-togethers with my wife's sister's family. Great people, and two enjoyable visits. They're on their way back to Houston now, so Tuesday and Wednesday were Thanksgiving previews, or trial runs, you might say.

Looks like our big dinner will be during the four o'clock hour.

6:30 p.m. CST: This Thanksgiving dinner, it was the five of us - including our second Daughter home from Missouri State in Springfield. We gave thanks, and the food was great...turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (for those who wished), stuffing (again, some partook, some didn't), rolls, corn, cranberry sauce, celery, and baby carrots.

And I left plenty of room for pie.

Since then, I've turned on the outdoor Christmas lights, and done most of the dishes.

6:50 p.m. CST: Not long after I posted last, the announcement went out, "Time for pie"!

Pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Yummy.

9:45 p.m. CST: Some of my readers know though others might not, that my family and I live in the house I grew up in. Well, from age 5 1/2 until age 29 anyway. I'm thankful for my wife and children, and it's great to celebrate holidays with them. But living here, I can't help but remember past Thanksgivings with other family members, some scattered, some since departed.

So that thought got me started on a search for an old slide of Thanksgiving 1973, when my sister, her husband and their first daughter, my grandfather Ira "Poppy" Moore, and 5/6 of the Scowden family came for a visit. I took a picture of everyone, including my mom and dad. I haven't found the original slide yet, but when I do I'll re-scan that. The earlier scan I did find has issues and I know I can do better. When I find and re-scan the slide (maybe tomorrow), I'll post the image here.

10:45 p.m. CST: Of course, I thought of the WKRP episode with the turkeys...you know the one. One of their better episodes, and Hulu has it. When you have about half an hour, give yourself a treat by clicking here. Funny stuff.

Well, we had food left over. So maybe in a week or two we ought to have another get-together...like this guy.

Have a thankful weekend.

Thanksgiving -> Advent -> Christmas

Seems like it’s been difficult to sit and write lately, and I’m not sure why. It is a busy time of year, but I’m not as busy as a lot of people I know. Maybe I’m not satisfied with what I have in mind before I get to the keyboard and I hope to come up with something better, so I tend to put it off.

It’s best then, to sit down and just begin. In fact, I’m toying with the idea of starting the year with a post a day, no matter how slight. Well, more on that if it happens. Stay tuned!

So to catch up, we had a small, quiet Thanksgiving, just the five of us with daughter number two home from college. My son ushered for the Thanksgiving service, then we returned home to a good early afternoon dinner and family time. We had turkey and other traditional side dishes – cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and the like; all on the good dishes. But we didn’t knock ourselves out over-preparing each and every possible thing, the goal being to keep the stress to a minimum. I had the good sense to not interfere with the cooking, and after dinner I did dishes. The rest of the afternoon and evening we relaxed. When it got dark, I turned on our outdoor Christmas lights, and after a while turned on the TV to watch the ceremonial lighting of the Plaza lights. I suppose you could ask for more, but I’m not sure why.

I had been keeping my eyes and ears open for comments on thankfulness. I got an email from a friend, somewhat of a lengthy but good list. Here’s a few that resonated with me:

“I am thankful…

…for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.

…for all the complaining I hear about the government because it means that we have freedom of speech.

…for the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking and that I have been blessed with transportation.”

And I especially took note of this one:

“I am thankful…

…for the lady behind me in church that sings off key because it means that I can hear.

And I appreciated what Cousin Mike had to write on his blog about Giving Thanks, and…well, click here, the whole thing’s worth reading.

Now, on to the first Sunday in Advent, November 29. When I saw the Advent wreath, I made a point of saying to my kids, “Happy New Year”, being as that day marks the beginning of the Church year. The thanksgiving theme was repeated in the first two verses of our Epistle Reading for the day (1 Thessalonians 3:9-13):

“ 9 For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God,
10 as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?”

That stuck with me the whole service.

Advent is a special time of preparing our hearts as we approach the celebration of the birth of Christ, a time that will reward us if we’re not in such a rush that we ignore it entirely.

A friend of mine has blogged a series of 13 posts on his journey from his early memories of Christmas as a boy, to his current celebration of a scaled-down, Christ centered Christmas. Most of his entries are short, and if you click here, you’ll go to his last post where you can link to each of the previous 12 posts. His Advent comments start with his seventh post, but I found it worthwhile to read them all in order starting with the first; perhaps you will too. I couldn’t have put it better.

I got out our Advent wreath and candles late, the second week of Advent. Hopefully next year I’ll be organized from the first, well, it’s a work in progress. I do enjoy lighting the candles and having a devotion…there have been years where I’ve skipped that entirely, I’m sorry to admit.

And as for the Christmas decorations, I guess I decorate more than some and less than others. I do get a great joy out of decorating, especially putting up the lights. For what it’s worth, I guess my personal rule of thumb going into this season is:

1. Keep the faith – don’t neglect gathering as believers.
2. Decorate as much as you enjoy, but if you start to stress out, stop. It’s good as it is.
3. Shop early, not the last few days…definitely not Christmas Eve.
4. Keep the Christmas meal simple, sandwiches, finger food and snacks, a few simple desserts. Don’t make it a lot of work (unless your family has a tradition of a big gathering and feast that you all enjoy – your mileage may vary, as they say).
5. Relax, enjoy, make memories, and take photos to look at later, if you wish.

Well, I’m in more of a writing mood now, so it’s likely I’ll post again before Christmas (though probably on other topics). But in case I forget, I’ll say it now. I hope and pray you all have a blessed, fun, stress-free and safe Christmas season.

Giving thanks 2008

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Or, Thappy Hanksgiving, if you prefer.

This year we kept close to home. Daughter number two was home from college, so there were five of us around the table. Early in the day I switched on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, just long enough to see the beginning (Tom Turkey, a marching band all in white uniforms, Snoopy, and Dora the Explorer). I figured that none of my “out of the ordinary” cartoon characters would make an appearance, and I had things to do, so I didn’t stay with the program.

It was really a nice day outside, so I finished connecting extension cords to the Christmas lights I had put up along the gutters and around the front door. They all light nicely, and most of them are the new LED lights, gifts from daughter number one (who just called), and my son-in-law in California. We had a great dinner, but we ate enough that we haven’t gotten into dessert yet. It’s 9:15 now as I write this, so there’s still time for pie. And I think I left enough room, though just barely.

I always try to remember the real reason for the holiday, and keep a thankful attitude. This year has been a challenge, though I can mention the basics. I am thankful to be alive, to still have most of my vision and half of my hearing. I have a wonderful wife, great kids, and a sweet granddaughter. Most of all, through no effort or merit of my own, I am redeemed by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ - “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, Revised Standard Version).

Now here’s something I just heard of today, and I think it’s a neat idea. Tomorrow is the National Day of Listening (details can be found here). The idea is to counter some of the excess busyness of the day after Thanksgiving, and take an hour to interview a loved one. This could be a family member, a close friend, or anyone you admire or who has made a positive impact on your life. You might find out something you didn’t know before about that person, and make a memory that will last a lifetime. There are directions to get you started, including lists of suggested questions you could ask.