I may be taking a break but I wouldn’t dream of missing a chance to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. My friend here wants to remind you all to eat fish for Thanksgiving dinner! 🙂
Tag Archives: holidays
Itchy Feet
No it’s not athletes foot. I’ve been around home too much. I’m getting restless and need to go exploring. Luckily it won’t be long before I’m making the Christmas Decoration rounds. I hear Edaville is going to be open again for its Festival of Lights. That’s great news. I was very sad that the owners had planned to close after last season.
Of course LaSalette is a must visit again this year but I’d also like to make the trek north of Boston to go to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham. I’ve heard that they do a wonderful job at Christmas.
Oh and I never got to Boston last year to photograph the lights in the Boston Public Gardens so I will have to make an effort to correct that omission this year.
In the meantime I need to think “Thanksgiving”. I might go back to Plimouth Plantation again or there’s Old Sturbridge Village. I haven’t been there in years.
Last year there was a walking tour in Plymouth based on the Native American’s point of view. I missed it last year. Maybe I should see if that is being done again this year and put that on my “to do” list. It’s not like I have anything else to do. (Ha Ha)
It seems like Thanksgiving is becoming a “forgotten” holiday. I touched on that in my post Christmas Decorations Already? I mean, seriously, do we see many Thanksgiving decorations? not really, a few here and there but compared to the Halloween close outs and the incoming Christmas crush they are squeezed into half a row at best!
And what do we do for Thanksgiving besides having an excuse to enjoy one of the best meals of the year? Maybe a football game, probably the local team in the morning and then the “Big Bowl Games” on TV in the afternoon. what else? Oh I know, a favorite of mine, I put Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade on the TV while I get the Turkey ready for the oven. I think last year there was Macy’s on one channel and Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on another. But unlike Christmas I don’t see a lot of events to attend and things to do.
Every place goes all out with Holiday Light Displays (I’m being PC ) and the NutCracker Ballet is a big event. Many locations that had Halloween now break out the hay rides and sleighs (when there’s snow). But I googled for Thanksgiving Themed things to do and struck out. I guess eating too much and warming the couch are the traditional things to do on Thanksgiving Day in the Modern Era.
Christmas decorations already?
What happened to Thanksgiving? Wasn’t Halloween only last week? The candy is still on sale!
I drove by the Taunton Green and they are stringing the Christmas lights already. Since Taunton is known as The Christmas City the display each year is quite elaborate so I’ll give them a little slack.
However I ran into Walmart to pick up a few things and there by the door was a fully decorated Christmas Tree! Inside the store you could shop to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock.
Maybe it was the early snow storm that swept through New England but I still think the Christmas trees and decorations should go up the day after Thanksgiving….one holiday at a time!
Of course if retailers must get ready for the season before Thanksgiving, could’t we have a week or two after Halloween to finish eating our candy before we start to think of cookies and milk for the Jolly Old Elf?
Merry Thanksmas everyone. Have a Bootiful day 🙂
Ode to Halloween
Halloween’s a special time. It’s the time when the veil between our world and the afterlife is thinnest according to Celtic tradition. We dress in costume to fool the ghosts and ghouls who walk the earth for one night each year. So don your cloaks, get out your wands and keep you black cats close.
LITANY FOR HALLOWEEN
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From ghoulies and ghosties,
Long-leggety beasties, And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us. -Anonymous
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THE GHOST OF A FLOWER
“You’re what?” asked the common or garden spook
Of a stranger at midnight’s hour.
And the shade replied with a graceful glide,
“Why, I’m the ghost of a flower.”
“The ghost of a flower?” said old-time spook;
“that’s a brand-new one on me;
I never supposed a flower had a ghost,
Though I’ve seen the shade of a tree.”
-Anonymous
Columbus Day
I thought it would be easy to come up with a short little post about Columbus Day. I remember learning a poem in about 5th grade and thought I’d use that. It was not to be. I can only remember bits and pieces . I tried to google it and found lots of Columbus Day poems but not the one I’m looking for. It had a line Sailing West to Find The East and another line about The Nina, The Pinta and the Santa Maria and the refrain referred to the date…1492.
So with no poem to share I thought that instead I would share some Columbus Day Facts that I ran across.
- Columbus Day is not an American Holiday but is a New World Holiday.
- Spain celebrates Columbus Day as Fiesta Nacional or “National Day”.
- Hawaii and South Dakota do not celebrate Columbus Day.
- Columbus Day first became an official State holiday in Colorado in 1906.
- It became a Federal Holiday in 1937.
- Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866.
- San Francisco claims the nation’s oldest continuously existing celebration with the Italian-American community’s annual Columbus Day Parade.
- New York City boasts the largest celebration.
- In 2007, Dane County Wisconsin Supervisor Ashok Kumar replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.
- South Dakota renamed the holiday “Native American Day”.
- Hawaii celebrates Discoverers’ Day, the day the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii.
Columbus Day is not without opposition by factions who feel that the day is being used to expand the Catholic influence. This opposition dates back to at least the 19th century.
A 2nd wave of opposition is based on the man himself and his character. Columbus has been described as a social climber and self promoter who would stop at nothing to advance his ambitions .
As more and more historians dig into the past, more facts seem to emerge and more of the myths are being dispelled. It remains to be seen if the weight of this growing body of evidence will eventually sway public opinion to the point that Columbus Day becomes just a quaint footnote or continues as a viable holiday. In the meantime, I will raise a cup of grog to the intrepid mariners of the day that dared to sail away to unknown seas and new lands.
(Photo courtesy of the Columbus Foundation and their two Columbus replica ships – their original Niña, the most historically accurate replica of a Columbus Ship ever built, and their recently built Pinta.)