Tag Holidays

Yes, Virginia

Michael 8 Comments

Santa Claus exists. In movies, books, cartoons, traditions, stuffed stockings, and the hearts and minds of children of all ages. Whether known as Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, Father Frost, or one of many other names, he is going to visit kids sometime soon. Just ask Virginia. The only problem with Santa is that there is always some spoil sport claiming there isn’t any proof that he exists. He’s just a story. Nobody gives away something for nothing. Blah, blah, blah.

So maybe Santa does have a teeny identity problem. Or maybe not. Maybe the doubters can poke holes in Santa’s existence but not so with Jolly Old St. Nick.

Jolly old St. Nick really was jolly, really was old, and really was real. Nicholas was born March 15, 270 A.D. in the Lycia province, part of present day Turkey. His parents died in an epidemic when he was young and he was raised by his uncle who was a monk at a local abbey.

StNickAlthough the beneficiary of his parents’ significant wealth, Nicolas was raised simply at the monastery and eventually was ordained a priest and distributed his wealth among the poor. After many years in the Holy Land he returned to Lycia and was consecrated Bishop of Myra.

There have been many stories of his generosity but one of particular interest involves a poor man and his three daughters. The man had no money for dowries for his daughters and without them he feared the girls would remain unmarried and be forced to work as prostitutes to support themselves. Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the man’s window as the oldest daughter came of age and again as each of the other two did likewise. And so began the tradition of St. Nick secretly giving gifts to children.

Nicholas died a martyr on December 6, 343 and his feast day begins the Days of Giving. One particularly old custom was that children could receive gifts anytime from December 6, the Feast of St. Nicholas to January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany.

So yes Virginia, there is a St. Nicholas. If you’d like to celebrate in style, give something to someone every day for the next 30 days. You might run out of bags of gold but just a golden word or friendly gesture will do.

Wishing you the blessings of St. Nicholas today and always.

 

  • Nicholas Icon by Jaroslav Čermák (1831-1878) via WikiCommons

Day In and Day Out

Michael 3 Comments

Yesterday was a glorious day in my neck of the woods. Sunny and warm, with temperatures in the mid 60s. Very April-like which was a relief from the February-ish November we just escaped. If you didn’t know better (unless you live in south Florida) you’d not know there were only 23 days until Christmas.

SantaWhen I was a kid we always knew how long till Christmas. That goes with childhood. You could have asked any random 9 year old on May 6 how long till Christmas and without hesitation would have gotten “only 233 days!” in reply. Parents got a little extra help. Beginning the day after Thanksgiving the morning paper posted a happy Santa holding his nice or naughty list proclaiming “20 Shopping Days Until Christmas!” That’s what yesterday’s paper would have printed. Yes, back then there was a difference between days until Christmas and shopping days ‘til Christmas.

This isn’t a post about how great things were in those good old days. I just want to point out that back then the stores weren’t open on Sunday and on Christmas Eve it wasn’t unusual for many to close before dinner time so the employees could be home with their families. Not every day was a shopping day. Of course today the stores can be closed and still shopping gets done through the magic of on-line retailers and electronic charging or cash transfers. Still those places with real doors will be opening them every day until Christmas.

Except …

Not everything is open on Sunday. And I don’t mean the post office. You can receive and they do deliver mail on Sunday. No, I mean banks. Banks, those financial institutions that try very hard in their ads to convince us that they are just ordinary people like the rest of us mere mortals working to make our money work hard for us. Uh huh.

Over the years they’ve made it handy enough for us to do most banking without their input. Automated teller machines have been around for years along with on line money transfers and automated recurring payments. Just like you would expect in the 21st century. Then why in a day when a merchant can determine whether you have enough in your checking account to cover that new OLED TV with your debit card even if it is 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon, and manage to reduce your balance by the price of that TV (plus tax and extended warranty) they still make you wait three days with you make a deposit “for the check to clear.” And why do they never tell you what they are doing with that money in the interim. It seems like they don’t have to long for the good old days. They never left them.

Back to shopping though. With now just 22 days till Christmas (and if I recall last year some retailers were actually guaranteeing same day delivery of select items ordered by noon on Christmas day making it now 23 shopping days till Christmas) I better get myself in gear. I have a lot of preparations to make. No, not a lot of shopping to do. I don’t do much shopping for Christmas. I’ll still put together a small stocking for my daughter (after 29 years the Santa fantasy is now more mine than hers), but otherwise the gifts to and from the rest of the family are our love and company.

The preparations I have to make are keeping my recycle bin empty for the daily onslaught of printed “gift guides” and my “Delete Finger” limber for elimination of the electronic version of those same and similar guides from my email inbox. Has anybody noticed those gift guides all seem to bear recommendations for anybody on your Christmas list with gifts from the same store? Who would have thought your 96 year old aunt and your 7 month old great nephew can be satisfied in a single trip to the same hunting and camping emporium. And no I am not receiving that email because I requested it. I never heard of you before and where is the “click here to unsubscribe” line?

One thing I don’t have to prepare for is an unusually warm Christmas. In fact we get back to December weather later today with falling temperatures and snow by morning. For those of you living in south Florida that’s the white stuff Frosty is made of.

Who Said So?

Michael 2 Comments

This Saturday is National Coffee Day. It might have been the brain child of somebody at Maxwell House but since it seems to have been celebrated only since 2005 or so, chances are better it was the work of those Starbucks people.  Or maybe not.

Did you know you can find a food to celebrate every day of the year? Some days two or three! Did you ever wonder where they all come from? Cynically, I used to think they are all promotional activities of a company that produces the particular celebrant. But I recently discovered that’s not always the case. In fact it seems to be not often the case.

CuppaThe key that this might be true is is the description of those many heralded food stuffs’ celebratory dates. Quite often they read “probably first observed in…” or “not much is known about the origins of…”. Really? We can pinpoint the day and time Dunkin’ Donuts becomes Dunkin’ (Start of Business, Jan. 1, 2019; parent company will continue to be known as Dunkin’ Brands (in case you really needed to know)) but not when Coffee Day became a day when all those chains that push coffee will push free coffee (probably with an additional purchase) that day. But if it was one of those, would they (it?) not have registered or trademarked or whatevered “Coffee Day” so all caffeine addicts would have to beat paths to their doors and thus take full and sole (or sole and full, even) advantage of those additional purchases?

Maybe they didn’t. Um, they being them, those companies, or associations or user groups or other sort of official folk. Maybe it was John-Bryan Hopkins, founder of the Foodimentary website. In a 2004 interview with Money, he said he created hundreds of such “holidays.” When Foodimentary.com went live in 2006, “there were already around 175 food-related holidays. ‘I filled in the rest,’ he said, to ensure there was at least one food holiday for every day of the year.”

So do we thank Mr. Hopkins for Coffee Day, or International Tea Day (December 15) for non-coffee-drinkers (coffee non-drinkers?)? I don’t know, but thanks to him, if it wasn’t before it is now possible to wake up any day of the year and say to yourself “Self, what makes today unlike any other day, food wise that is?” and have an answer.

By the way, if you can’t wait for Saturday to guzzle a mug full of your favorite stimulant, Friday is Drink a Beer Day.🍺

99

Michael 7 Comments

99.4% pure

99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 luftballons

99 parts perspiration

99 days until Christmas

SantaFrankYikes! Only 99 days until Christmas! That must explain why I’m starting to see Christmas displays and decorations for sale in the stores. They don’t have themselves decorated yet. Halloween is the theme for their own decor but there are indeed in store Christmas displays started to crop up. I went to At Home last week and walked by close to a hundred artificial trees just inside the main entrance.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve tried (often failed but tried) to adhere to the adage “proper planning prevents poor performance” but I don’t think the first space shot took three months of preparation. Ok, that’s probably not true but still.

Since the world is giving us three months to prepare for Christmas (or whatever winter holiday you want to celebrate, I’m picking Christmas), here are 99 suggested activities. One for each day.

 

  1. Tell someone you love them
  2. Tell someone you love who you haven’t talked to for a while that you love them
  3. Read something you know will make you smile
  4. Watch a movie
  5. Give blood or give a donation to your local blood bank
  6. Listen to a song you used to sing along to
  7. Send somebody a card or letter – a real one, not one with an “e” in front
  8. Hug a friend
  9. Buy flowers for yourself
  10. Offer to help
  11. Take a walk
  12. Read something you know will make you cry
  13. Update your emergency contact information
  14. Splurge on yourself
  15. Pet a dog
  16. Watch a cartoon
  17. Call a friend (Don’t text!)
  18. Do something without thinking
  19. Apologize for what you did yesterday
  20. Straighten your sock drawer
  21. Meditate
  22. Hold a door open
  23. See the dentist! At least make an appointment
  24. Try something healthy
  25. Eat a cookie
  26. Try something new
  27. Retry something old
  28. Have a waffle
  29. Go to a museum
  30. Sing along to a song you used to listen to.
  31. Leave a penny
  32. Call a relative
  33. Play with a child’s toy
  34. Draw a picture
  35. Play solitaire
  36. Exercise until you like it
  37. Watch an old movie
  38. Change (or make) your email signature
  39. Read a short story
  40. Sing a song a capella
  41. Laugh for no reason
  42. Make up a knock knock joke
  43. Be nice to someone you don’t agree with
  44. Eat an apple
  45. Eat candy
  46. Unplug
  47. Talk with an accent
  48. Sleep late
  49. Put together a jigsaw puzzle
  50. Take a ride for no reason
  51. Pet a cat
  52. Hug a friend again
  53. Recycle
  54. Give something away
  55. Change the batteries in your smoke detectors
  56. Whistle a happy tune
  57. Pickle something
  58. Be bold
  59. Be careful
  60. Admit fault
  61. Talk to others nicely
  62. Tell a story
  63. Invite a friend over
  64. Talk to yourself nicely
  65. Let someone go in front of you
  66. Don’t be late!
  67. Take a chance
  68. Buy a chance
  69. Yell out loud
  70. Say something nice
  71. Give thanks
  72. Buy something you don’t need
  73. Put on a happy face
  74. Take a selfie
  75. Organize the spice cabinet
  76. Go to bed early
  77. Offer to help
  78. Have a brownie
  79. Donate something you haven’t used yet this year
  80. Smile
  81. Agree – respectfully ChristmasTree
  82. Look at old pictures
  83. Work it out
  84. Be silly
  85. Clear your mind
  86. Ask for help
  87. Disagree – respectfully
  88. Wear plaid
  89. Write a review
  90. Clean the mirrors
  91. Clean the refrigerator
  92. Tell someone a secret
  93. Learn three new words
  94. Draw something
  95. Wave to the neighbors
  96. Welcome an old friend
  97. Plan next year’s resolution(s)
  98. Take responsibility
  99. Say a prayer

 

Merry Christmas. Eventually.

What Faux Fall Flora Wrought

Michael 6 Comments

We are almost half way through September which means if you haven’t yet, you soon are going to be too late to buy any of the good Halloween decorations. I was thinking about this last weekend when I was taking stock of my meager faux fall flora for my coffee table and front door. I like fall. I like the colors. I like the calmness that seems to fall upon fall mornings. But except for fun size candy bars, I’m not so much into Halloween.

Apparently I didn’t get the memo. Last year Americans spent over $9 million on Halloween decorations. Right around 9,100,000 dollars according to The Balance e-zine. They went on to say that is because it’s an economical holiday and people “are willing to spend money on something if it provides a lot of value. Halloween does that.” I guess they didn’t see the $14 hairy spider at Big Lots. Or maybe they did and their idea of value is different from mine.

FauxFallFloraIf you crunch some numbers and divide this into that, that being how many people claim to celebrate Halloween with more than spiked cider and this being that 9 million figure, you come up with a spend of about $86 per person. I’ve spent that much on a nativity set and I have well over 50 of them. (Really. Some people are into hairy spiders, I’m into nativities. I have them, many complete with wise men, made of clothes pins, cheesecloth, corn husks, ceramic, glass, plastic, straw, bronze, wood (carved, sculpted, machine cut and assembled, hinged, and nested), bronze, stone, steel, marble, paper, wool and rubber, sawn from barn board, and cut out of paper.) It’s what I do for Christmas so I can’t say if you want to eighty-some bucks on Halloween you’re nuts. But if you’re planning on spending eighty-some bucks on Halloween, you’re nuts! Except for the little candy bars. Those are cool.

Anyway…just yesterday I was going through my email and I came across a headline “Ugly Halloween Sweaters Were Made For People Who Are Too Lazy to Dress Up.” Well, I couldn’t pass up that piece of bait and I clicked away. What I discovered is, like ugly Christmas sweaters, the ugly Halloween sweaters really aren’t. This is just my opinion but that opinion is that they are kind of cute. The other thing I discovered is that somebody’s going to have to revise that $86 per person spending estimate. Those sweaters go for about $40 per.

For myself, I’m sticking with the faux fall flora. Maybe I’ll spend my $86 on another manger scene this Christmas.

 

Summer, Santa, and Selfies

Michael 2 Comments

MeWelcome to Selfie Day 2018. I’m not sure if it’s a National or International Selfie Day. I guess wherever there are cameras, err phones, and selfie worthy backgrounds, err phones, people can celebrate.

Personally I think we would be better off celebrating Half Christmas than Selfie Day. Even though marketing people are very up on doing Christmas in July specials that’s only because nothing else is happening in late July. But if you really wanted a hot celebration (Southern Hemisphere inhabitants understandably forgiven for minimal enthusiasm over the summer Christmas thing in general), now is the time, well, in 4 days is the time for summer Christmas. That’s when it’s really halfway betwixt last Christmas and next. Just because American mattress sellers and used car dealers are wrapping up the Banner Flag Day Specials and putting their Hot Fourth of July Sales on deck is no reason to ignore a natural not made up reason to celebrate.

But since we do relish made up reasons to be as selfish as we can, we instead have Selfie Day 2018. When you can mug for all the world and make it look like an almost natural thing to do.

Happy You! And did I mention Happy Summer?

Timing Is Everything

Michael 4 Comments

Time’s Up

Yesterday for Easter, the family went out for dinner. It was a very good and we had just as much fun visiting and chatting at a table among other tables of families doing the same as we would have had at a table within one of our own set of walls. The only downside was that after the meal, after the dessert and coffee, after sitting back into a good stretch for a moment or two, as we waited patiently for our check, our patience ran thin as that patient wait ran to 20 minutes before we even spotted the person with our check to be in her apron pocket. Not for the first time did an efficient wait person who was always ready with a suggestion, always available with a drink refill, always timely with the next course, was nowhere to be found when the time to say goodbye came around.

 

AprilSnowThe Little Scamp

Yesterday was a hockey night and on the way into town as the late afternoon sun shone through the car windows warming the interior close to July levels I almost thought about switching on the air conditioning to have a good preseason run through knowing it wouldn’t be long before warm days become hot days. This morning, the day of the local baseball team’s home opener, we woke up to four (yes, 4 (!)) inches of snow. I know Punxsutawney Phil promised us six more weeks of winter but he usually orders them up consecutively.

 

Best of Two

Today is Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Yes, it is. Really. To celebrate I was going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, something I do maybe once a year, usually on Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Plans were going well. I got out the peanut butter. I got out the jelly. I got out the bre… hey! there’s no bread. Then I remembered that late night post hockey game ham sandwich assembled on the last of the bread and saying to myself it was ok, I’d run out in the morning and get some. For those of you following along, that was the same morning that found 4 inches of snow on the ground and me saying boy I’m glad I don’t have to out for anything this morning.

 

Sometimes the time’s timing is running a little bit late.

 

An Eggcellent Family Tradition

Michael 2 Comments

Holidays are great for traditions. All the big holidays have great traditions with lots of family time and activities people are willing to wait all year for. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Groundhog Day.

egg1But as is so often the case, the biggest seem to have the least. And Easter is the biggest for the Christian community for if not for Easter there would be no Christian community. But still the fewest and the least. There just aren’t those big events we associate with the holiday outside of the church.

It might be because spring is a horrible time for a holiday. The secular season has its own traditions more universal than celebrating a religious commemoration. Spring break, baseball opening day, and high school musicals all compete for the limited attention span of people who have just gone through too many weeks of snow, ice, and freezing temperatures.

eggsMy own little family is no exception. Although there are our every year church activities and things we do most of the time, we have but one family tradition we’ve done every year since my daughter was old enough to sit at the table and spill colored water about the kitchen. Dying Easter eggs on Holy Saturday. This year since my dialysis schedule has me sitting in a chair not at the kitchen table most of this Saturday, we rescheduled our egg dying for today, Holy Thursday.

Easter eggs have been a tradition in Italian households for centuries, long before there was an Italy. Early Romans used eggs in their spring festivals to symbolize new life as did early Persians and early Mesopotamians and early Africans and druids and pagans and probably cavemen. Christians just borrowed them because the symbolism works for Christianity too. And for the two of us it works because we get to spend a few hours in each other’s company and catching up with each other and with the season.

egg2Traditions are good for that. Connecting seasons with the people. Take the opportunity this season to start or continue your own tradition. Whatever season you want to celebrate, Easter, Spring or Baseball, can be a chance to make new or stronger connections with the people most important to you.

Happy Easter. (I pick that one.)

 

Suiting Up

Michael Leave a comment

Twelve is a very important number. There are twelve months in a year, 12 animals represented in the lunar calendar, and twelve gods resided on Olympus. An American jury has 12 members; a Canadian football team has 12 players. There have been twelve men who walked on the moon. The Bible speaks of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. Beowulf has 12 followers, Thorin has 12 dwarfs, and there are 12 generals in Paradise Lost.

And in twelve weeks it will be Memorial Day.

What? Memorial Day? Yep. In 12 weeks America celebrates Memorial Day, another holiday no American gets to celebrate with a day off except for government employees but, and this is important, a day all Americans not lucky enough to live in Florida, Arizona, or Southern California get to celebrate with pool openings!

I thought this year I should celebrate Pool Opening Day with a new pair of trunks. Somewhere along the way, men have gotten the short end when it comes to swimwear. It may run from the classic Speedo and all that threatens to blind you when you think of most men in a Speedo to the classless board shorts and all that threatens to blind when you know those things are going to fall off at any moment. But between those extremes are the basic trunks in dark solid colors or inoffensive prints. Take reasonable care of them and they will last 40 or 50 years. And stay stylish throughout that time.

But only a short trip through the Internet’s e-mall and I saw that boy, was I wrong.

I knew I wanted something more distinctive than basic blue swim shorts and in an uncharacteristic fit of silliness (as opposed to a fit of uncharacteristic silliness) I typed “funky trunks” into the search bar. I didn’t know there is an actual company called “Funky Trunks” specializing in funky trunks. I guess technically Funky Trunks is a trademark of the Way Funky Company of Melbourne, Australia from where they supply funkily styled trunks to swimmingly adventurous men in Australia, Canada, throughout the UK, and in the USA, and maybe in a few other countries too. I stopped looking when I saw how much they cost for how little material they use!

NotMe

Not me in not my new suit

I won’t pick on just the branded funky suits and their high prices. All men’s swimsuits have gotten more expensive than the last time I went recreational clothing shopping.  To me, $60 (US) seems like a lot for something to wear to the pool. But I hadn’t bought any for a while and then it was probably at a store with “mart” in the name on an end of season clearance rack so what do I know.

So then I thought the couple pair I have will have to do until sometime this fall when the end of season racks are filled with funky style trunks. Or maybe basic blue.

 

Happy No Not That

Michael 6 Comments

Today is Presidents Day in the United States. Actually it isn’t. It’s Washington’s Birthday but nobody calls it that anymore and I won’t dwell on that here because I already dwelled on it here. Regardless of what you want to call it I’m not going to talk about it here and not because I have an issue with the weirdo in office now. I have issues with all the weirdos who’ve been there except maybe Washington but I already took issue with those issues here.

No today is more important, more universal, more significant than presidents. Lots of countries have presidents. And why do we feel we have to “honor” these career politicians anyway? Do other countries with presidents have a special day set aside to remember the contributions of everybody who ever was crazy enough to take a job no sane person would want?

What about the countries without presidents? Are there King Days in monarchies? Are there Premier Days in oligarchies? Do puppet governments have Dictator Day? What about the countries with where the seat of government is more sofa-like with say a president and a prime minister? Who gets the day? Does each get a day? Maybe 12 hour shifts on the same day?

I’m sorry but there are just too many issues with Presidents Day. Leave it at Washington’s Birthday about the rest of them. You guys in other countries are on your own. Now to be truly universal, seriously inclusive, honestly honorable, let’s celebrate the day that everybody can get behind. Come on and join me in celebrating…..

Happy Fiftieth Anniversary to Mister Rogers Neighborhood!

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.   -Fred Rogers

Although Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was first broadcast by what would become PBS on February 19, 1968, Fred Rogers first hit the airwaves from Toronto with his Children’s Corner in 1961. His gentle manner and strong devotion have done more for America than all of the presidents we’ve elected since then. We would have done well to more often hold him as one to emulate rather than ridicule. They say in America anybody can grow up to become President. But only one American ever grew up to become Mr. Rogers. While you are celebrating your extra day off take a moment to ask yourself who you have been more like as a role model for your children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. And knowing what you know now, who you would have more wanted as yours.

I could have written an entire post celebrating Mr. Rogers but there isn’t enough space available to me to say all the good things about this remarkable man. Our world is better because of his Neighborhood. Now if we could only get our country to follow suit.

Misterogers

Pittsburgh Post Gazette