THE HOLIDAY SEASON AND HOW THANKSGIVING GETS THE BIRD!

  Thanksgiving is the one holiday my family celebrated. Way back in the ancient days, when people only put out a pumpkin for Halloween and Christmas lights and trees.

   It is a beautiful time of year. I love the fall.  Well, when I lived in New York and we had fall. It's different in Florida. A student here told me a joke. He asked if I knew when autumn came to Florida?  I said no. He said it was when the license plates changed colors.  ( For those of you who might not understand it's when the snowbirds from out of state drive down.)

   But in New York, the air would get crisp.  I can still remember the smell coming from the radiators that had been newly painted when the heat first came on.  AD*

   Halloween would come. We'd collect our candy, play some tricks  and that was that.
    I don't recall when Halloween started to emulate Christmas. They must have been sneaky, but they did it.

  
    There are now as many decorations for Halloween as there are for Christmas. You can decorate the outside  and inside of your house with all kinds of ghoulish delights.
 
   I should know because I have bins of them in the attic from when I had Halloween parties. They are the best to host because you don't have to really cook. AD*
   
      They even have black, Halloween trees. The trees started very small. I bought  one because it was so cute. And the ornaments. Adorably cute. And you know how women can't resist the "cute" factor".
     Then the trees started to grow. Unfortunately not like in the Nutcracker Suite, where you'd only need one, but they started to make different sizes.  And they keep growing.  This week I saw some on sale that  looked like  small black Douglas firs and I'm sure they have huge ones in store for us in the future.

                           Another Historical Tidbit

      During the depression, people were, well really depressed. F.D.R. wanted to lift the people's spirits and the economy so he decided that decorating for Christmas would start right after Thanksgiving in order to put people in better spirits, and hopefully, money spending frames of mind.
      I don't know if it worked, but the starting early never ended. Actually, it appears to have stretched like an elastic band in a pair of pants that you might wear to your Thanksgiving dinner.


                                 Back to the present

         Slowly, the stores started to move up events. I believe they created this Halloween phenomenon  so they could make more money. Or maybe to divert us from the recession, if there is one.  I mean really, who needs to decorate this much? I don't live in a store. Not to mention the question of who has the time to do this? You get yourself exhausted from putting things up taking them down and putting them away. Summer doesn't even end and here is all this Halloween crap.
         Then, it disappears quickly and on November 1st , Santa is there with all his elves and  toys asking you to take them home.  I know this for a fact, since I have seen it with my own two eyes. That's because I was shopping yesterday, and the day before and well, okay. I like to shop. *AD

         So  if you were a little slow on the uptake and forgot to buy a Thanksgiving tablecloth, lady, you are shit out of  luck. Unless you buy and save everything you  know you will need for every Thanksgiving , you'll just have to wait until next year. Assuming they will still bother to sell Thanksgiving and autumn decorations.

         The timing for Thanksgiving really sucks. Ever since Halloween became this big deal and the follow-up for Christmas can't wait until after Thanksgiving, our poor Turkeys get the shaft. Or the spit,oven or the deep fat fryer.  You know what I mean. 

        The most American Holiday, the one that shows our appreciation for all we have as Americans has bee shunted aside by the another American trait. The celebration of greed.  Sorry. I seem to get political all the time and it isn't my intent. At least I don't want it to be. I don't even listen to or watch the news so I won't know what's happening in the world because I get SO upset.

              So why did they have to invade my one safe haven of retail? AD*

        Christmas is another beautiful time of year. I love decorating for Christmas. I have a garage full of items that can attest to that. I also have stuff at the top of my clothes closet. Taking things up and down from the attic was too much of a pain in the legs, arms and back.

        As it turns out, this is a good economical arrangement. All year long when I get dressed I eyeball an assortment of decorative things. Like three, three foot Santas. Pillows of Santa and a box of Chanukah items. And this is what I remember off the top of my head. Or from over my head.
        Last year the people who owned a really cool store retired and had a great sale that lasted for weeks.  I was good, and waited until things got really cheap. It was okay not to have first pick since I didn't need any of the things I bought. So, I also see unopened boxes of Patience Brewster ornaments and I have no idea what.
       Actually, opening the things I already own is even better than Christmas morning because I am always surprised by what I have. That should be a clue.

      This has given me the strength to walk the aisles of the stores and resist buying ( I pray) more Christmas things since I  know that I really don't know what I already have. *AD

                                        WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO THANKSGIVING

       Even though it's been stuck in the middle of two other holidays, I will always be grateful for Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for my husband and his family, whom I dearly love. I am thankful for my friends and the light they bring into my life. I am thankful to the family that has taken me in as its own. I am thankful for the teens I have worked with who have shown me that connections made long ago can remain important and solid. I give thanks that I can afford to buy all the things I do.
    
      I am thankful for being quirky. I am thankful for living in a time where I am old enough to be able to enjoy the life I worked so hard for. I am thankful that I can bitch about our country and not be arrested and only get into fights about my beliefs with my friends, who stay my friends anyway.

     An so for my theory, I believe that although the other holidays may obscure Thanksgiving, on that day, people still give thanks and the rest of the crap doesn't matter.

      Amen


*AD   stands for:  Another Digression





I couldn't find any other decoration pix. That's what I get for thinning out the boxes.



Same here. However, you can tell I take this Holiday seriously.

"LET THEM EAT BRIOCHE" not said by Marie Antionette and translated to "cake". An importan lesson from history.

         Marie may not have said it, but I think she was on to something. Things were really, really bad in France from 1789 onward.

                 Une Petite Histoire

       The people of France were starving and obviously pissed off. They wanted emancipation for the individual, greater division of property, abolition of the privileges of noble birth (think 1 percenters)  and equality. And, they wanted it for all humanity. That's kind of funny when we think of France now.
    Currently, they seem to think they are better than everyone else and oops.  Another Digression. I shall heretofore use the initials AD* when I digress. If you've read my blogs, you know  how much I go off on tangents so when I do, from now on, you'll see them everywhere and I'll let you know with the initials AD.  oy. AD
 
     The events leading to the  French revolution included national fiscal troubles caused by inefficient tax systems and expenditure on numerous large wars.  Starting to sound familiar? no?

     The resistance was lead by the peasants, laborers, and the bourgeoisie (that's the middle class).
On July 14, 1789 the peasants as they say, stormed the Bastille where all the good weapons were kept and Viva La Revolution.

                What this has to do with cake

      The peasants were starving. They had no bread and I will assume, not much food either. However, I'm going to make a leap that since they worked the fields, built houses and ships,  that although  they were hungry, many were just physically fit enough to carry out a revolt. These revolting peasants won and at least for a time created a republic.
      I will not go AD on this and go into the details of said revolution and it's aftermath.

       The conditions that prevailed at that time sound amazingly similar to some of the conditions that we in the USA  are faced with. Unequal distribution of wealth, privileges for the un-named nobility (the aforementioned wealthy).  People who are slaves to their jobs or government checks.  And a tax system that is not collecting enough to pay the nations bills and debts.
        Personally, I find this revolting and imagine other people do as well. I try to imagine a revolution of some sort to fix the injustices. And here is where my imagination goes.

                                      PICTURE THIS IF YOU WILL

        Picture our "peasants" i.e.. unemployed, underemployed and underpaid and the disappearing middle class.  Then  picture what they look like. I don't mean to be offensive, but we do know that there is a lot of obesity in our nation.  Now,  try and imagine them getting up off their couches and taking up arms. Marching. Demonstrating. Fighting.
         Now see them running down the block, charging ahead with their guns. Unfortunately, most of them probably do have them.  Okay. How far did they get? I see  a wheezing, out of breath, dropping to the ground and groaning mass. For me, it was not a pretty picture.

        If our nation were  attacked by actual soldiers and not crazy terrorists, it won't matter how many guns we they have. Most of them couldn't outrun a stalled car. In previous wars, the men were ready to fight or at least close enough that we really needed time to manufacture the weapons.  Now we'd need a nine month boot camp to get our fighters into shape. And that may be optimistic.

                       BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STATEMENT ( I always get there)

      If the peasants had eaten brioche, that rich, luscious bread that is cake like, they too would have been obese and out of shape and unable to overthrow a table laden with goodies.
      
       My conspiracy theory.  Our government is behind this. Promoting obesity. Why is the cheapest food the most fattening?  They are also interfering with the education system so no one actually learns anything. Heaven forbid that they learn to think or reason.  The war on drugs is being fed with overproduction of narcotics approved by the FDA. Let's assume there's more.
        Most of the 1%ers don't know what's going on. They could care less because none of it effects them. The ones running the show are having a good laugh.
        When you have a nation of people who are addicted to food, drugs, sex, computers, phones, and video games, you don't have to worry about an uprising.
      
       After the French Revolution, Napoleon took over the country. That may not have worked out so well, at least not for him. We have a constitution, a vote and a government full of politicians.  I, frankly am sick of all this bullshit.

       Just in case the addiction epidemics and over all stupidity  aren't sufficient, they have now  polarized
us against one another. So, instead of fighting them, we are fighting each other. Joe Blow in one corner, Joe Shmo in the other. This is not an AD. This is where I was headed only I didn't know until I started writing.

         REMEMBER THE ALAMO!   REMEMBER THE MAINE!  DON'T GAIN THOSE 7 POUNDS OVER THE HOLIDAYS!