Happy Thanksgiving!

A little while ago, I posted that I have a light dislike for Halloween. On the other hand, I have previously posted about my love of Christmas. Shoot, I’ve even blogged about Easter. We’re rounding out the holiday posts today with a little bit about Thanksgiving.

Why Thanksgiving is Great!

The main reason that I love Thanksgiving is that it is not overly commercialized like to many other holidays. Halloween is quite possibly the worst, as it has no other redeeming qualities, and Christmas unfortunately falls pretty deep into the category. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is mostly commercialism free.

Some will argue that parades on Thanksgiving are all about commercialism. After all, why would the mega stores sponsor a parade if they didn’t expect it to be good advertising? To this I offer a simple response: I don’t watch parades very much. Since they are not part of my tradition, that means that they don’t impact my holiday.

Secondary to this lack of marketing comes the fact that Thanksgiving is all about family. (Or, at least it has been historically. The family will be mostly separated this year.) I remember Thanksgiving when I was a kid. We would sit around card tables, at counters, and (for the elders) an actual dining room table. My maternal side is quite large, so eating space was always at a premium. Foods were the typical American fair of yams, stuffing, fruit salads, and turkey.

Always there was an absolutely huge bird (typically in the twenty-pound range). Of course that bird would go into the oven no later than 6:00 AM. We heard every year that turkey cooking must be done early and thoroughly to make it good. It took me a while as an adult to realize that turkey is actually quite a moist bird. It also took me a while to realize that Thanksgiving dinner didn’t have to occur at 2:00 PM.

Not that I’m complaining, mind. Somewhere up in the clouds is a kindly old woman who would gladly send a spiritual spoon to wrap my knuckles if I appeared to be ungrateful.

After dinner there was plenty of digestion time (2:00 PM, remember). Cards would slide across the table, adults would drink beverages, and football would wrap up on the television. Eventually we would get to the second feast, which contained something like sixty-five pies. Eating in our family was a very serious affair. The best recipes were passed on, and we remembered the women that had died by their prowess in the kitchen.

Full to the point of bursting, bored with playing inside, and without the raft of technological gizmos that help parents today, we children would often drop off the map at around 7:00. After all, one could sleep happily knowing that a day of leftovers was coming. (Note, we did not madly rush out to stores for the best deals.)

But Where’s the Thanks?

Honestly, despite the pre-meal Grace, thanks were never a large part of our Thanksgiving. We were grateful to those that did the cooking, but the purification of the holiday by spiritual improvement was very understated. Sure, everyone was thankful for the four days off of work, but they got just as excited about Labor Day.

For me, the idea of giving thanks has never been associated with Thanksgiving. We have enough, and are thankful for that fact throughout the year. We use the day of Thanksgiving for a family event and tournament eating. Christmas and Easter are the spiritual holidays in the year.

In Conclusion

Here’s to a happy Thanksgiving in the way that you choose to celebrate it. I will be smoking a kosher brined turkey, and will undoubtedly love it.

Why the last eight hours didn't suck!

Just a quick one this morning folks, as I’m awaiting the next disaster.

The past eight hours haven’t been a treat, but I’m going to try to put a positive spin on them. After all, my troubles are trivial compared with others.

Problem 1: Jonah awakes at 2:10 AM. He cries for twenty minutes, which is our key to go in and get him. He is then awake for the next hour.
The Positive Spin: Mommy is a shining star. She gets the boy milk, comforts him, and even lets him sleep on her side of the bed. 3:30, we all go back to sleep.

Problem 2: Berta decides to puke at 4:00 AM. Just as I’ve gotten back to sleep, the tell-tale noise cuts into my subconscious. Race down stairs, but it’s to late, and I get to clean the carpets.
The Positive Spin: It was a pretty easy clean-up, I think. We’ll see what D thinks of the carpets this morning. Trouble is that now I’m totally awake, and won’t be sleeping again, despite getting back to bed. Ultrapositive spin is that the boy doesn’t wake up.

Problem 3: The second shower at 6:45 AM. Now I’m up, I’m dressed, and I’m at the bus stop. It’s been raining like crazy all night long, and the storm drains are completely flooded, which means lots of standing water on the roads. A car whizzes by, hits the huge puddle in front of the bus shelter, and I’m soaked from head to knees. Poor Berta cut the wave off with her body, keeping my shins dry.
The Positive Spin: It’s Washington, I’m going to get wet from time-to-time. And, it’s quite warm out, so I don’t freeze.

Problem 4: The dead laptop at 7:05 AM. I walk in the door to my laptop blue screened again. *sigh* Where’s tech support?
The Positive Spin: Easy fix, I just reboot the stupid thing.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have extra strong coffee brewing.

366 Days Later

I had intended to write this on the actual anniversary of this blog’s opening. Intended, failed, oh well. It’s a day late, live with it. For those that are curious, my original post is available here.

Over the past year, I have reflected quite a lot on the idea of blogging. I find it interesting that people have this urge to present the privacy of their lives out to the Internet population. For example, reading over this blog, one could learn quite a bit about me:
 Rush fan? Check.
 Hockey fan? Check.
 Two children? Check.
 Married? Check.
…And so on.

I think of this publishing of a life as a bit of a drug. You start with a blog, in which you control content due to the infrequency of time available to write long entries. It’s not all cherries and loving comments (haven’t gotten any). No, there is real work involved in writing one of these entries. I actually have to think about the structure, proper wording, and such.

Next down the path to Internet publishing addiction is the social networking sites such as Facebook. This is still connectionless communication, but there is a closer sense of authorship to readership. These sites flourish through the ability to comment on other people’s content. Content is usually very simple to create, and long entries are discouraged. Facebook “status Updates”, for example, generally are between 15 and 100 words.

Next down the path we come to the microblogging sites. These are sites like Twitter, on which it is expected that you will push pretty much constant “tweets” to a hoard of avidly waiting friends. Spending much time in this sort of environment will ultimately lead to either madness or complete Internet addiction.

Finally we have the actual chat sites. This can be as simple as virtual rooms of individuals typing to each other in real-time, or as advanced as multipoint video conferencing. However you do it, a constant diet of chat means that you really do have a problem, need to unplug, and possibly find a low-tech hobby. I recommend guitar.

I’ve happily walked down the path to phase two, and that’s plenty far enough for me. You can expect to keep getting these blog entries infrequently throughout the year, and I’ll keep posting Facebook status updates. Just don’t ask me to sign up for Twitter, or I’ll flash the sign of the evil eye at you.

One final note: I’m typing this in Word. Spell-check is giving me a Flesch-Kincaid rating of 6.1. After a day in which I spent no less than six hours writing at a Flesch-Kincaid of 13+ I must admit to feeling a bit refreshed.