Having A White Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving day again; another year passed remembering the good and the bad. Thanksgiving continues to be my favorite holiday, and one thing I’m thankful for is that this holiday has remained relatively commercial-free. This is and should be the one day each each when families and friends come together to celebrate, reflect on the year passed, and give thanks for their many blessings. Then eat a lot of turkey-based foods.

This is a white Thanksgiving day as we already had our first snow of the year yesterday. Given my general lack of excitement about cold weather, having snow in November doesn’t bode well for the rest of the winter. But, whatever; I can be thankful that summer is on the way…

This has been another fairly good year for the Charest family, Virginia edition, and I have many things to be thankful for. Winnie and I are still together. More than anything else, I am thankful for the marriage we’ve built together. I still have my health. My doctor continues to tell me I’m in pretty good shape for a man my age, which I continue to take as a compliment. On the flip side, I wonder about the people my age who’re not in such good shape. The family finally got my mom out of her house in the middle of nowhere and moved her down to Tennessee, where she has lots of people around to take care of her and keep her company. I know it was hard for mom to make that move, but she did and everyone in the family came together to help her. I’m still employed, making a decent income that provides for our needs and still leaves extra money to put away for retirement. We had a nice vacation trip this past spring to England and France. Winnie got to Europe for the first time, we saw Paris in the Springtime, and even had a bonus of visiting an old friend in London and my brother in Cardiff. I continue to enjoy boating and kayaking during the months when It’s actually warm enough to be outside.

My normal Thanksgiving tradition has been to invite over a lot of friends and family (on the occasions that family actually live nearby) and cook a huge turkey with all the trimmings. One big regret here in Northern Virginia is that there is no family close by and the friends we’ve made have their own plans for Thanksgiving. This year will just be the two of us so I’m not cooking. Winnie and I have dinner reservations at Gadsby’s Tavern, a historic tavern in Old Town Alexandria that advertises “Fine Dining Since 1770.” Presumably, they’ve learned something about cooking during the past 244 years so this should be a nice experience for us. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat lots of turkey, and have a great day together with friends and family.

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This and That, 2010 Wrap-Up

This and That

Another year passed, a new year ahead. Another time to sing Auld Lang Syne and celebrate the western world’s marking the start of a new year. All things considering, this is as good a day as any to take a few moments to reflect on the year passed, and what may lie ahead. I think this has been a good year in the Charest household, Virginia edition. The big event this year belonged to Winnie; gaining her American citizenship. But we had other events significant and insignificant that are still worth remembering, and was more of the same.

In November I was informed that the contract I had been working under for the past nearly two years would be ending this month and not renewed. I had been expecting this news, but it still came hard as I really enjoyed the work. I also didn’t know what I would be doing after the contract ended, even though I knew my firm would keep me “on the bench” until something else came along.

However, the first week of this month I landed a new contract assignment that may prove to be even more enjoyable than my previous one. I’ll still be around ships but these will be a bit smaller than the ones I was working on. I will be doing a lot of traveling, which I’m not particularly excited about given how abusive the TSA is becoming.

At least I did not travel this month, so I’ve had the rare opportunity to see what thirty days at home felt like.

I had another project come to a close this month. Back in October I started a certification program studying for my “Certified Supply Chain Professional” exam throughThe Association for Operations Professionals (APICS). This included four classes conducted eight hours per day for four consecutive Saturdays. I couldn’t help but notice that I was by far the oldest person in my class, even older than the instructor. Many of my classmates were nearly half my age. The classes ended in mid November and had three weeks to study on my own for the certification exam scheduled for December 11. I spent the final ten days prior to the exam cramming for my exam, and then I did pass.

Gaining this certification gives me the right to add “CSCP” after my name in all official correspondence, and bragging rights in my resume. This certification is industry- recognized and does mark a certain level of professional excellence that may help me gain future assignments. I also feel rather happy knowing this old dog can still learn a few new tricks.

Meanwhile, we decorated the house for Christmas with Winnie doing most of the actual work on account that I was busy studying. She really got into the Christmas decorating this year and did a wonderful job. This year was the first year we actually celebrated in this house. For the past three years we’ve gone up to my Mom’s house for Christmas. This year we managed to convince her that she really needed to come down here. Finally, she did agree. We had a quiet Christmas weekend together. we had a small dinner and opened our gifts. Christmas day we had dinner with friends at their house.

Our House Decorated For Christmas Mom came down December 23 and planned on leaving again Monday the 27th. She ended up staying an extra day on account that Snopocalypse struck the New York City area over Christmas weekend. On the day she was supposed to return home nothing was moving, not even a bus.

During this past week I had the wonderful opportunity to telecommute for work. One of the things that I think I will enjoy most about this new assignment is that I’ll have increased opportunities to work from home. Any day I don’t need to spend 3+ hours commuting is already a good day.

Our Christmas Living Room So here we are, New Year’s eve again. Winnie is working today until about 8:00PM so we’re just going to stay home tonight. Winnie doesn’t much get into the western New Year’s celebration anyway; she’s more interested in celebrating which happens February 3 this time around.

However, this will be her first year celebrating New Year’s as a American citizen, so I’ve reminded her of the fine print on the bottom of her citizenship papers that says she has to stay up until midnight and watch the ball drop in Times Square. She doesn’t believe me that it’s there, right under the other fine print that requires her to eat turkey on Thanksgiving…

Looking back, 2010 has been a good year for us. Having had really bad years in the not-so-distant past, a good year like this past year is especially sweet. I know this hasn’t been the case with many people in my family, nor for many other people around the country. To my family, friends, readers, and everyone else, I’d just like to say that bad times cannot last forever. Eventually, things have to improve. They always have for me, and the Goddess willing times will stay good for Winnie and me for at least a little while longer.

Happy New Year everyone. May your coming year bring you good health, happiness, and prosperity.

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The Never-Ending War on Christmas

So who’s winning the War on Christmas? Snowmen Nativity

Once again Christmas time is approaching. Houses in our neighborhood are all decked out in colorful lights with inflatable ornaments sitting out on snow-covered lawns. The stores are full of holiday shoppers making retailers smile while dreaming of big holiday bonuses like kids wishing for candy-apple treats. Our TV screens are aglow with the many incarnations of Santa Claus telling the viewers in TV land just how great of a gift their trinket would be for that special someone.

So who’s winning the War on Christmas?

Besides all the general merry-making this time of year, we also have our right-wing brethren ranting about the “War on Christmas” that heathens, Liberals, and other evil-doers are committing in the name of destroying all that is good and holy about our most holiest of Christian traditions.

However, a quick trip to the ever wonderful “Wikipedia” gives us these gems about the Controversies of Christmas Pasts and the truth about the war on Christmas. Puritan era

The first documented Christmas controversy was Christian-led, and began during the English Interregnum, when England was ruled by a Puritan Parliament. Puritans (including those who fled to America.) sought to remove elements they viewed as “pagan” (because they were not biblical in origin) from Christianity (see Pre-Christianity below). During this period, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas entirely, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it “a popish festival with no biblical justification”, and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior. The Army was sent to raid homes and confiscate any cooked meat. This led to such resentment that it provoked riots in Kent, leading to the Second Civil War and the Siege of Colchester.

Wikipedia : Christmas Controversy

So, OK then. Back in the 1650s in Jolly Ol’ England, the War on Christmas seemed to be a pretty hot time, what with soldiers breaking into people’s homes and taking their roast beast right off the Christmas dinner table and all. I can see this leading to a deeper level of warring and stuff.

Then we have this:

Protestantism

Prior to the Victorian era, Christmas in the United States was primarily a religious holiday observed by Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. Its importance was often considered secondary to that of and .

As was the case with other Christian holidays, Christmas borrowed elements from Pagan peoples, including logs, decorations such as candles, holly, and mistletoe. Christmas trees were seen as Pagan in origin. Cited as proof is Jeremiah, 10:3-4, which states, “For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan. People deck it with silver and gold they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.” The Advent period (originally a fasting period meant to point to the Second Coming of Christ), and gift giving (invented by Martin Luther to counter St. Nicholas Day, 6 December) were also Pagan in origin.

During the various Protestant reformations, these paganizing elements were a source of controversy. Some sects, such as the Puritans, rejected Christmas as an entirely Pagan holiday. Others rejected certain aspects of Christmas as paganizing, but wanted to retain the “essence” of the holiday as a celebration of the Christ’s birth. This tension put in motion an ongoing debate within Christianity about the proper observance of Christmas.

Wikipedia : Christmas Controversy

Leave it to the Protestants to figure out how to ruin a good time. But, it seems the War on Christmas kept right on going.

19th century

According to historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid- Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by Charles Dickens. In A Christmas Carol, Hutton argues, Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church- centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Modern celebrations of Christmas include more commercial activity, compared to the more religious celebrations of the past. Historian Stephen Nissenbaum contends that the modern celebration in the United States was developed in New York State from defunct and imagined Dutch and English traditions in order to re-focus the holiday from one where groups of young men went from house to house demanding alcohol and food into one that was focused on the happiness of children. He notes that there was deliberate effort to prevent the children from becoming greedy in response.

Wikipedia : Christmas Controversy

So, thanks to Charles Dickens, we went from a celebration where folks spent all day sitting in church on Christmas Day, to a celebration where people went house to house asking for free booze and food. Until some undoubtedly well-meaning do- gooders put a stop to all that stuff so as not to set bad examples for the children. Of course, it had to be New Yorkers…

And today, we have the modern era with such notable luminaries of civil discourse and rational discussions asBill O’Reilly claiming:

[…] that any specific mention of the term “Christmas” or its religious aspects was being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisers, retailers, government (prominently schools), and other public and secular organizations. A variety of Christians and non- Christians alike have agreed with these claims to varying degrees.

Wikipedia : Bill O’Reilly Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

I guess the fact that Christmas hasn’t necessarily always been a major holiday, and in fact is not even celebrated by every Christian sects (at least not on December 25), and that even the way we celebrate Christmas has changed dramatically over the centuries, doesn’t seem to matter to our purveyors of reason and rationality screaming about the war on Christmas. It’s all about equating what is supposed to be the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace with finding ways to get people hating on each other.

Now that is obscene. But, it seems that things today are about the same as they ever was…

Here’s to a merry Festivus everyone, with peace on earth and good will towards men.

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A Day to Give Thanks Happy Thanksgiving

I may have mentioned this in the past, but I really like Thanksgiving Day. In fact, it’s become my favorite holiday. Notwithstanding that my doctor recently assured me that I was in good health “for a man my age,” just knowing that I have another annual holiday for the chance to give thanks is a good thing.

So, as in year’s past, I want to list the many things Winnie and I are giving thanks for this past year.

Our blessings over this past year include:

Winnie and I made it through another year still together. We both still have good health. Our families are all reasonably healthy and reasonably prosperous, although we don’t have the opportunity to see each other as often as I’d like. Winnie became an American citizen this past year, after a seven year struggle with the USCIS and acclimating herself to a very different country and way of life. I still have a good-paying job. Over this past year I gained a promotion, received a merit award, and my career generally prospered during this harsh economy. Winnie and I have the resources to follow our personal interests and hobbies. I gained a beautiful new 2010 model motor boat, something that even a year ago I could not have conceived would be possible. I gained a kayak, which has opened up an entirely new world of boating and water sports. Winnie is continuing to excel at her vegetable and flower gardening, and the local deer are especially thankful to her. We gained good tenants in our rental property, a real bonus after the past year’s nightmare of watching people trash all our hard work and financial investment. We have good friends, live in a safe neighborhood, and have a warm comfortable home to call our own.

So today, we give thanks for the past year’s blessings. I do need to admit, calling this a day of thanks is somewhat relative, as a lot of turkey’s are probably not especially happy about it. But, it’ll be their finest hour.

So, to all our readers, family and friends; I wish y’all a happy Thanksgiving 2010, with many blessings for a good year to follow.

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Happy Mothers Day

Here’s to wishing all Mother’s in the United States a Happy Mother’s Day. For those families who actually live within commuting distance of “Mom,” be sure to take her out to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or at least stop by and say hello. For those of us too far away to commute, at least give dear old Mom a call….after sending a card or some flowers… Read a short history of Mother’s Day on the flip.

From the ever wonderful Wikipedia, comes this short history of Mother’s Day in the US:

In 1907, Mother’s Day was first celebrated in a small, private way by Anna Marie Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, to commemorate the anniversary of her mother’s death two years earlier on May 9, 1905. Jarvis’s mother, named Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, had been active in Mother’s Day campaigns for peace and worker’s safety and health since end of American Civil War. The younger Jarvis launched a quest to get wider recognition of Mother’s Day. The celebration organized by Jarvis on May 10, 1908 involved 407 children with their mothers at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton (this church is now the Mother’s Day Shrine]). Grafton is, thus, the place recognized as the birthplace of Mother’s Day. The subsequent campaign to recognize Mother’s Day was financed by Philadelphia clothing merchant John Wanamaker. As the custom of Mother’s Day spread, the emphasis shifted from the pacifism and reform movements to a general appreciation of mothers. The first official recognition of the holiday was by West Virginia in 1910. A proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day was signed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson on May 14, 1914.

Wikipedia

Mother’s Day is also celebrated in many places around the world:

Different countries celebrate Mother’s Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins. One school of thought claims this day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of Greek gods. This festival was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (15 March) to 18 March. The ancient Romans also had another holiday, Matronalia, that was dedicated to Juno, though mothers were usually given gifts on this day. In some countries Mother’s Day began not as a celebration for individual mothers but rather for Christians.

Wikipedia

So Happy Mother’s Day!

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A Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Marketers have not yet been able to make this holiday anything more than a day when we sit down with family and friends to share a meal together and spent just a moment giving thanks for the past year. This will be our second Thanksgiving celebration in Virginia, and the first spent in this home. It’s been a turbulent year again, better than some previous years but worse than others.

Winnie and I do have a lot to be thankful for this year, and I’d like to share them with our many readers. First, I’m thankful that Winnie and I are still together. For everything we’ve been through in our marriage, we’re still a couple.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Turkey

We still have reasonably good health. Besides the obvious blessings of good health, it also means we don’t have to deal too much with doctors and the G-D medical insurance people.

I’m in a job that I still enjoy, working with people I like and mostly get along with all while earning a decent salary.

Winnie and I own our own home, a comfortable house in a decent neighborhood. As much as I miss the house I had back in Mississippi, I do love our new home. A double thanks that we’ve been able to decorate it to our mutual liking.

Our respective families are in good health and doing well. Even though we are far away from everybody, we’re able to communicate and keep in contact as much as we want.

I’m thankful for the new friends we’ve made here in Virginia, even though I miss the friends we left behind in Mississippi.

Finally, I’m just thankful for the chance to look forward to another year of adventure and challenges.

So to everyone reading this, and even for everyone who’s not, here’s to wishing you’all a Happy Thanksgiving Day! Please, sometime during this day, take a moment to stop and reflect on your blessings. Now, Let’s Eat!

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And A Very Merry Christmas to All!

Christmas Celebrations

Just a short post this Christmas Eve to wish all our many readers (many => more than three) a very Merry Christmas!

And now for the usual caustic commentary you all know and love, Christmas is not my favorite holiday. There are two holidays I enjoy more. My favorite is Thanksgiving, closely followed by New Years.

Even though I’ve learned that Thanksgiving is not the unique American holiday I once thought, I still enjoy it for the symbol of blessings. Despite the best efforts of marketers, it’s still a non-commercial holiday. Thanksgiving remains, for me, the essence of what a celebration should be; a group of family and friends coming together to have a big meal, enjoy each other’s company, and spend just a minute or so thinking about their blessings of the past year.

New Year’s Eve has is my second favorite holiday because it’s come to symbolize another year of resilience.

These past years have been personally horrible. Making the adjustment from military to civilian life starting in 1996 was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Shifting from one dead-end job to another, earning less than what I earned in the military became mind-numbing. My divorce in 2001 knocked me down hard. Getting re-married was a blessing, but then I fought the INS for nearly two years to get Winnie here, feeling very much alone in that fight most of the time.

Topping off my run of horrible years was living through hurricane Katrina mere weeks after Winnie arrived, followed by the year-long storm recovery. Followed by moving away and now living in a strange place, trying to make new roots after ripping away my past.

So New Year’s Eve has come to be my celebration of resilience and hope; my personal celebration that no matter how much of a beating I had taken during the year, I was still standing and still able to fight another year. Along with resilience has been my hope that the coming year just had to get better.

Christmas has always been a holiday for families with young children. As I get older, I feel the lack of children more acutely. Yes, Winnie and I are working on correcting that lack, but it hasn’t happened, yet…

Meanwhile, I don’t feel much of that “Christmas spirit” these past years. The Christmas shopping crowds irritate me, and anyone who claims people are just a little nicer during the Christmas season have never been to a department store that time of year.

Christmas cards are difficult, because I really want to tell everyone I send a card to everything what’s happened to me the past year, and know everything that’s happened to them. But the best I can do is write a brief newsletter, hitting the high points, and hope they’ll do the same. Which usually doesn’t happen.

Gift-giving is also very difficult for me. Our family lives scattered all across the country and we see each other at best once every several years. We are almost never able to get together during Christmas holidays. So at Christmas time I don’t know what the other family members are into; what music or books they enjoy, what little something they’d really, really like but would never buy for themselves, nothing.

So I end up mailing out store gift cards each year, which in my hierarchy of gift giving is like a cold pickle, compared to the warm fuzzy of watching someone open a brightly-wrapped package and seeing the flash of happiness in their eyes.

And the blatant hypocrisy of some people is almost breath- taking. I truely don’t like people who for 11 months out of each year could care less about helping others. Then suddenly, right after Thanksgiving, they go into a frenzy of selfless charity, screaming to anyone who will listen that only “you” can help a poor child have a nice Christmas.

They amass huge amounts of money in an orgasm of selfless good deeds and fund raising, and publicly anoint some Terribly Poor Family with a wonderful bounty of toys and food just in time for the Most Magical Event Of The Year.

Then these wonderfully selfless people, flush with their 30 days of good deed doing, spent the next eleven months ignoring those Terribly Poor People. While bragging to anyone who’ll listen just how much Good Deed Doing they Performed during the past Christmas.

Some would call it the “Magic of Christmas.” I call it making points with Santa Claus. But that’s just me.

But for all the annoyances, all the things that I don’t like about Christmas, there is one part about it I do like. It gives a group of family and friends another excuse for coming together to have a big meal, enjoy each other’s company, and spend just a minute or so thinking about their blessings of the past year.

And so for that, I wish everyone reading this, my friends and family, all the people I know and care about (and even a few I don’t care about), I wish a Christmas that brings peace, happiness, good times with their family and friends, and the blessings of gaining their hearts desire. Along with a bit of mulled cider, a bit of fruitcake, and a chance under the mistletoe with their true love.

Merry Christmas!

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