Christmas – Life In A Word

A Triumph in Travertine

LEGO Trevi Fountain – Update #8

(Read about the start of this build in Brick Wall Waterfall)

A little over two months ago we set out to do the impossible: construct one of the world’s great fountains in time for Christmas. Today, a day before our self-imposed deadline we put the very last piece of travertine in place. Okay, so this Trevi Fountain is made of LEGO and we’re nowhere near Rome but still, we’ve had a nice little adventure from start to finish.

As is the case with many of LEGO’s models, the final pieces are meant for flourishes and ornamentation. Bag 14 – of 15 bags of pieces – focused entirely on the top center structure you see here. Everything was completed in a cool 23 minutes, finished off by the careful placement of those four tiny statues.

Today’s musical accompaniment was fitting. I chose Gabriel’s Oboe, a short but beautiful instrumental some of you may recognize from Amy Grant’s “A Christmas to Remember” album. It was actually written by Ennio Morricone for the movie The Mission. I listened to it twice. Then I went with Luigi Boccherini’s Minuet from his String Quintet in E Major, which some of you may also recognize from movie scores. I listened to it thrice. Finally, I concluded with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (though of course, only with the “Winter” movement).

Bag 15 – the final bag of Trevi LEGO pieces – was an adventure from the get-go. Thirty seconds after spilling the pieces onto the counter I heard a tiny “tap tap tap” on the kitchen floor, the exact sound of a LEGO piece skittering away. Sure enough, way over by the frig, the little guy was standing there looking up at me with a devilish grin. He’d rolled way, way across my kitchen counter and dropped to the floor before attempting his escape. Again with the runaway pieces, sigh…

The statuary of the Trevi is impressive and the LEGO equivalent is kind of fun. If you look carefully in the piles of pieces above you can see hairpieces, torsos, and horse heads. Fully assembled and installed, it’s quite the collection of humans and animals in and among the rushing waters.

Finally, here’s an interesting coincidence of timing. In just over a month – for the first time in its history – you’ll have to pay $2 to see the Trevi up close. The fee is designed to reduce the overwhelming flow of tourists in front of the fountain. A fee just to see a fountain may sound nit-picky but a trial run showed it works well to reduce the chaos. Trust me: pay the $2, spend as much time front and center as they’ll allow you, and gaze upon one of the sculptured marvels of Ancient Rome. I think you’ll agree; the Trevi Fountain is a triumph in travertine.

Running build time: 7 hr. 48 min.

Total leftover pieces: 44

The Give-and-Get Machine

This Christmas season, by tidy coincidence, our family’s Twelve Days of Christmas will give to us six family members, Five Gold Rings, four restaurant dinners, three neighborhood gatherings, two Christmas concerts, and a downtown parade of horses, dogs, and Santa. As if that’s not enough “get” this year, we’ll also have a couple dozen presents under the Christmas tree… most processed through the Give-and-Get Machine.

I’ll get to the Machine in a minute but let’s start with the exception. In early October I walked into a local retailer, picked out a gift for my wife, and handed over a credit card. In exchange, the clerk handed over my purchase in a small paper bag. I took it home, wrapped it myself, and – two months later – placed it lovingly under the Christmas tree. If you’re thinking, Man you went to a lot of trouble, Dave – I sure hope your wife appreciates it, then you, my friend, are a product of the Machine.

What is the Give-and-Get Machine? It’s technology’s approach to gifting. When you choose to give a gift this year, nine times out of ten you’ll plop down on the couch, open your laptop, and navigate to your favorite e-commerce website. If you don’t know what to give, you can choose between “Last Minute Deals” or “Top Picks for You” (based on previous spending). Once you decide, you’re probably less than five clicks from the finish line, especially if your recipient is in your “Address Book” and you’ve already stored your personal information. Add to shopping cart, choose delivery address, confirm purchase, and you’re done. But wait! You can also add gift wrapping and a message for a few more pennies. Well now, aren’t you the savvy gift-giver!

The convenience of the Give-and-Get Machine is undeniable. After all, my purchase in October meant a one-hour roundtrip drive, to a shop where I may or may not have found something. Add another fifteen minutes once I got home to wrap the gift and add the To:/From: tag. You, meanwhile, accomplished the same “task” in maybe ten minutes, with a mug of hot chocolate and a few keystrokes from the comfort of your kitchen table.

“Task” is the operative word in the last paragraph. Gifting should spring from the heart instead of the Task app of your smartphone, right? Gifting should be a choice, not a chore. Perhaps those of us who default to the easy-out Give-and-Get Machine are missing out on the real meaning of Christmas.

Admittedly, the Give-and-Get Machine includes some really nifty apps. If you’ve ever used Gift Hero (“The Best Wish List Ever”) you know what I mean. GH is the perfect solution for the family that exchanges gifts but has reached the age (or proximity) where no one knows what to get each other. On GH each of you creates wish lists and the lists are shared with everyone else. Once you choose a gift from another GH list it’s marked as “taken” to avoid duplicates. Most gifts are hyperlinked to merchant websites for easy purchase, and you can add notes like color, size, and quantity. Also, GH blocks you from knowing what has been taken from your own list by whom, so the element of surprise remains.

There’s an endless debate with apps like GH. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s easy to skip any and all effort to be thoughtful about what somebody wants for Christmas when you have their list right in front of you. On the other hand, you avoid the occasional embarrassing face-to-face exchange, where the recipient insists I love it when in fact they really don’t, and will probably regift it next Christmas.

Ultimately, the almighty dollar may be the decider between a gift from a store or the Give-and-Get Machine. My wife and I found a nice assortment of books and toys for our Colorado granddaughters this year, at stores we visited both near and far. We wrapped them all up, put them in a large box, and drove down to the post office. The clerk measured the box and its weight and informed me the shipment “had to go by plane” instead of anything cheaper. The cost was more than my annual subscription to Amazon Prime.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of the Give-and-Get Machine after all.

Beyond Quenching

Last week on Thanksgiving, I drank the following beverages in a start-to-finish order I may or may not recall correctly: water, coffee, more water, eggnog, water again, wine, and just before bed, a final gulp of water. Eggnog aside (and wine only occasionally) it was a typical day of liquid consumption. But on the list of reasons why I drink anything at all, I find it interesting “quenching thirst” settles to the bottom of the pool. Closer to the surface are the more interesting intentions. Collectively you might refer to these habits as my daily fluid dynamics (DFDs).

When I wake up, the first thing I do (make that the second thing I do, after walking the dog) is to down a glass of water; a full sixteen ounces. I used to knock back just enough to chase my daily vitamins but then I read how you should drink water first thing in the morning, because technically you’ve been dehydrating for the last eight hours. So I started filling ‘er up to the top of the glass, a two-cup habit I’ve maintained for a long time now. Let’s list that habit as DFD #1: To help swallow things (like vitamins).

My top-o’-the-mornin’ water stands in the way of the one drink that truly matters in life: coffee (or tea for the rest of you). My daily dose of caffeine is always the same: twelve ounces of the rich and robust stuff, with just a splash of cream to take the edge off. Coffee takes me from foggy to functioning in a matter of sips. Post-coffee Dave is alert and ready to conquer the day. Call it a chemical dependency? Hardly. I can skip my “daily grind” here or there and be none the worse for wear. But morning brew is undeniably one of life’s simple pleasures. DFD #2: To deliver a morning wake-me-up.

Let’s make a brief rest stop on our tour of daily fluid dynamics… literally. My morning coffee comes with one utterly inconvenient side effect: the recurring “call of nature”. Something about caffeine seeks to clear out every available drop of moisture from my body, until I might as well be dust. It’s like one of those juice presses, only press down uncomfortably on the fruit every, oh, twenty minutes. If I could down an entire liter of cold brew, not only would I be bouncing off the walls but I’d also lose at least ten pounds in water weight over the next hour. Maybe I’ve discovered America’s next diet craze.

Okay, we’re back from our visit to the “powder room”. I’m chugging water several more times during the day (indeed, high/dry Colorado made my faithful companion a water bottle, wherever I go). But is all this water because I’m thirsty or because I can’t get the old saw out of my head, the one that recommends “eight to ten cups a day”? A similar water saw says to consume half your body weight in ounces, but let’s be real: I never get to that number (nor do I believe in one-rule-applies-to-all). Yet getting enough H2O still rattles around in my brain. So, DFD #3: To hydrate the body.

Eggnog done right (meaning it’s often done wrong) is my favorite drink of the holiday season. Conveniently, the creamy concoction also serves as a throat-soother when you’re sick. It’s cold, with a thicker-than-milk consistency that settles on your throat for a fair amount of time. Reminds me of the old Pepto-Bismol jingle (“the pink stuff”), how it “coats, soothes”. Eggnog might be as effective as a cough drop and it tastes a whole lot better. DFD #4: To ease a sore throat or cough.

Wine makes my fluids list regularly, and it would even if I had no argument for a DFD. But I do. Like today’s college “pre-game” drinking (or tomorrow’s holiday party you’re dreading), sips of wine dull the senses, warm the insides, and melt away stress. Loose lips are a common side effect, but wine in moderation typically makes the conversation flow. Plus, the right vintage simply tastes great, time and again. DFD #5 then: To act as a “social lubricant”.

Last (and least), water is not only my top o’ the mornin’ but also my close o’ the evenin’ drink. After the toothpaste, the floss, and the oral rinse, the water goes in and comes right back out. Swishing, gargling, rinsing, and spitting – it’s all an effort to restore order beyond the lips, so you head to bed without the breath of the dead. The only more effective approach would be a fire hose on full blast. So, DFD #6: To cleanse the mouth.

Maybe you’re a little more introspective about your consumption of beverages now (and you’re welcome). Like I said, quenching thirst is somewhere near the bottom of the pool. So the next time you’re taking a sip, and someone notices you being particularly thoughtful about it, just tell them you’d like to explain a little something called daily fluid dynamics.

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#1)

Listen carefully… hear the clock a-tick-tick-ticking? Better hurry up! You’re already a day (or more) into the Thanksgiving season and you have so much to do! “No Dave”, you correct me, “Thanksgiving’s just one day (or at most a long weekend) way-ay-ay at the end of the month… I still have plenty of time to prepare!” No you don’t. Junk that perception, online friends, because the times they are a-changin’. I, blogger Dave, hereby decree Thanksgiving to be three weeks… and the season’s already underway. So c’mon – get grateful already!

It’s fitting I’m writing this post on Halloween, “… the conclusion of spooky season…” as Lyssy in the City referred to it. And isn’t it true? Just like Christmas, the air goes out of the holiday balloon the very next day. Cinderella’s carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight (ironically). There is no “residual” spooky season on November 1st. Halloween died the night before.

Retailers are determined to steamroll Halloween and Thanksgiving with the Christmas season, of course. The artificial trees and decorations were available for purchase at Costco and Lowes this year before the Halloween candy even colored the shelves. As I said in Third-Wheel Meal two years ago, Thanksgiving is fighting an uphill battle between the ever-expanding seasons before and after. It’s like a sandwich with two massive pieces of bread but not much in between.

Thanksgiving is not just another holiday in my book; it’s a uniquely American holiday. It’s the one we’ve been celebrating in the U.S. for 160 years thanks to the persistence of one Sarah Josepha Hale (who also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Hale, along with Abraham Lincoln’s stroke of the presidential pen, made sure the holiday was “permanent… an American custom and institution”. Gives this juncture in the holiday season a little more respect, wouldn’t you say?

Like an Advent calendar, I propose we take twenty-three days to be grateful for what we have. Open the little cardboard door on any given morning of November and the question will always be the same: What are you thankful for today? Surely you can come up with twenty-three things. Or how about twenty-three people? Wouldn’t it be something if you told one person how grateful you are to have them in your life… every day until Thanksgiving Day?

As with Christmas, it’s not the wrapping; it’s the gift inside. Thanksgiving goes way deeper than turkey and football. If you’re planning a trip to America and don’t know much about Thanksgiving, VisitTheUsa.com is not helping my cause. The website reduces Thanksgiving into turkey and pie, Turkey Trots, parades, football, the pardoning of a single turkey, “shop ’til you drop”, and the travel challenges of a four-day weekend. Really? That’s the meaning of America’s Thanksgiving?

Maybe it would help if moviemakers and songwriters joined my cause. I mean, think about it. Halloween movies come to mind without much thought (with some, like A Nightmare on Elm Street, approaching ten sequels). Hallmark churns out Christmas movies faster than you churn out Christmas cookies. But are there any movies about Thanksgiving? Well, yes actually, just this year we have Thanksgiving (the movie). But please, don’t seek out the trailer. This garbage has nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with gratuitous violence.

I was going to make the same case for music. Halloween has you dancing to “Thriller” and “Monster Mash”. Christmas has you “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. There is no “Thanksgiving carol”. But then I remembered Amy Grant’s “‘Til the Season Comes ‘Round Again” (my wife’s favorite). It’s a song about Christmas, make no mistake, but you could argue there’s a little Thanksgiving dressing mixed into the first verse:

Come and gather around at the table
In the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment
‘Til the season comes ’round again

Get what I’m saying? Take the next three weeks and find the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Like Halloween, the treats will still be there on November 23rd. Like Christmas, you’ll still have the stress of travel and getting things done. Those holidays are about finding your inner child. This one’s about finding your inner adult. So c’mon – get grateful already!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Crescents and Con Artists

Every Christmas without fail, my family enjoys croissants as part of the morning meal. We pop them into the oven after seeing what Santa left in our stockings (but before unwrapping anything under the tree). So last week, as I loaded our Easter ham into the garage frig, a tantalizing thought occurred to me: the leftover Christmas croissants are parked right next door in the freezer. Could they possibly be as light and flaky as they once were, four months after their initial rise-and-shine?

If you know anything about authentic croissants, “rise and shine” is a fitting description. Thanks to some seriously active yeast, croissants rise to a soft, pillow-y consistency. Thanks to a whole lot of butter (and a little egg yolk), croissants finish with a pleasing sheen on their delicate, crispy crust. If there’s a more decadent baked good on the planet, my crescent-shaped ears are open and listening.

Croissants have been around a long time. They got their start centuries ago in ~~France~~ Austria as the more pedestrian kipferi yeast bread roll. Eventually the French stepped up the game using leavened laminated dough and butter, ending up as the light, flaky, many-layered version you know and love today.

Croissant means “crescent” of course (which is why I get hunger pangs whenever I gaze at the moon). Croissant also has an elegant pronunciation. Turn the “roi” into a “weh”, drop the final “t”, and keep the sound a little inside the nose. Cweh-saw. Congratulations! You speak French.

Even “crescent” has a dignified definition: a shape resembling a segment of a ring, tapering to points at the ends. Can you picture it? Sure you can, because now you’re thinking of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. They’re so “American”, aren’t they? We take a centuries-old, meticulously refined shoo-in for the Baked Goods Hall of Fame and reduce it to sticky, doughy, fast food; vacuum-packed into a can you open with a spoon.

[Speaking of Pillsbury, here’s something you didn’t know about the Dough Boy, otherwise known as “Poppin’ Fresh”. He has a family! His wife is Poppie Fresh, his kids are Popper and Bun-Bun, his grandparents Granpopper and Granmommer, and his Uncle Rollie. Don’t forget the dog (Flapjack) and the cat (Biscuit). In the 1970s you could purchase the entire clan as a set of dolls.]

Pillsbury isn’t the only crescent con artist out there. Burger King made a name for itself with its popular Croissan’wich breakfast entrees. And Galaxy, the Williams-Sonoma mail-order croissants my family and I enjoy at Christmas, start out as frozen minis, rise impressively overnight on the kitchen counter, and bake to an excellent knock-off of the bakery-made originals.

The preparation of authentic croissants requires time and attention we Americans don’t have the patience for. Watch the following video (which is thirteen minutes long so… maybe not) and you’ll learn what it takes. At the least, you’ll understand why I pay almost $4.50 for a single croissant from Galaxy/Williams-Sonoma.

Most of us wouldn’t make it past the initial “pre-dough” step in the video, let alone the labor-intensive lamination (folding/flattening), forming, fermentation, baking, cooling, and storage. We’re talking hours and hours in the kitchen here, and that’s assuming you have the right equipment. No wonder we’d rather just whack a Pillsbury tube on the counter edge and produce “crescent rolls” hot out of the oven 9-11 minutes later.

Still, I implore you to watch the cweh-saw video. The star of the show is Frédéric from Boulangerie Roy Le Capitole, narrating the process in his beautiful native language. This man could be saying … and then we drag the smelly garbage out to the back alley for the cats to dig through and I’d still be glued the sound of his words. Or, listen to our lovely video host and her delightful French accent (with the occasional incorrect word sprinkled in).

I was so mesmerized by the French voices I really don’t remember much about the croissant-making itself. But it’s hard to forget the facts. Making an authentic batch takes three days. A croissant is 30% butter and can have as many as fifty layers. French bakeries have “bread laws” to protect their artisan products. Finally, you can “hear” the sound of an authentic croissant by pushing through the crispy crust to the softer layers inside.

To the matter of my Christmas… er, Easter croissants, I’m happy (and satisfied) to report they tasted just as good last week as their holly, jolly predecessors a while ago. Apparently four months isn’t too long to wait for good croissants. But three days is too long to make them from scratch so I’ll keep buying from con artists.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Fantastic Plastic

On Christmas Day, any parent of small children will stifle a yawn, having built bicycles, dollhouses, and train sets the night before. After all, Santa doesn’t deliver unassembled toys. But hang in there a few years, Mom & Dad, because the building shifts from the giver to the receiver. Older kids want to create. In my generation it was Hot Wheels, Erector Sets, and Lincoln Logs. And one other toy surpassed all others for its ease of use and versatility. Lego.

My Christmas gift from my wife this year was a grand piano. Can you top that? Okay, so it wasn’t the kind worth five figures or special movers to get it across the threshold. My piano measures a mere 12″ x 14″ and comes from the Lego “Ideas” collection. When it’s finished it will have been built from 3,662 individual pieces. I can’t wait to get started.

A grand piano made of Legos means the simple interlocking blocks I had as a kid have come a long, long way. Lego Ideas sets are “products inspired by and voted for by Lego fans”. The collection includes a typewriter, a ship in a bottle, the house from the Home Alone movies, and the apartment from the Seinfeld sitcom. Every Ideas product involves thousands of Lego pieces to assemble. Every Ideas product was also completely sold out for Christmas on the Lego website.

Fifty years ago, Lego was blessedly innocent. All you had were small bricks in primary colors and if you were lucky, a paper set of instructions to create a simple house or a vehicle. Otherwise, you just built whatever your imagination could come up with. When my own kids were kids, Lego moved to product-specific sets like a T. Rex from Jurassic World or an X-wing Starfighter from Star Wars. Sure, they looked cool when they were built, but I was always skeptical because the sets removed creativity from the experience. You’d just follow the step-by-steps in the little booklet and voila – a T. Rex. But call me a hypocrite because this sixty-year-old can’t wait to build his step-by-thousand-steps Lego Grand Piano.

Lego has an interesting history – too many chapters to cover here. The numbers tell the story in a nutshell. The Denmark-based company is considered the largest toy company in the world. Their bricks have inspired movies, video games, building competitions, and eight amusement parks. Their factories have been churning out little plastic pieces for almost 75 years. And at last count, that pile of pieces surpassed 600 billion (or 75 Legos for every man, woman, and child on earth).

I didn’t expect to be a Lego fan as an adult but then came the Architecture series in 2008, cool buildings like the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, and Empire State Building. I just had to have one, so last Christmas my wife gifted me the 1,032-piece United States Capitol Building. I didn’t clock how long it took to complete but I must’ve looked awfully confident in the assembly because now I’m staring down the more daunting Grand Piano. Maybe my wife wants me locked down in my home office for the next several months?

To underscore the popularity of Lego these days, the Architecture series alone includes 50 buildings and cityscapes, with more coming out each year (the Taj Mahal was released just last summer). These sets run anywhere from $50 to $250, with the discontinued ones setting you back three times as much. Sure, I’d love a Lego version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” house, but I’m not going to pay $800 to a collector just to have one.

No discussion of Lego would be complete without a nod to custom creations. Our local Scheels department store has a larger-than-life Denver Broncos football player made of Legos, posing front and center in the toy department. The Church of Christ creation in the photo here didn’t forget seating for an 80-member choir (below the big yellow crosses). And the biggest custom creation of them all? A full-scale Lego replica of the previously-mentioned X-wing Starfighter, first displayed outdoors in New York’s Times Square. Try to picture 5.3 million Lego pieces and 23 tons of “toy” in the shape of a fighter jet. Or just check out the photos here.

Now that I’m done writing it’s time to break open the first bag of pieces to begin my Lego Grand Piano (and time for you to watch the ingenious stop-motion video below). I’ll use the stopwatch on my iPhone to capture the hours I consume to complete it. Er, days? Weeks? I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a grand piano. You might want to check in with me next summer to make sure I haven’t gone bats.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia” and the Lego.com website.

Third-Wheel Meal

In last week’s ’tis the Seasonings post, I wondered why “ginger” and “red hair” were synonymous. Paula from Monday Morning Rail replied with the answer which probably trumps all others (thanks, Paula!). Ginger Grant, the glam character from the sixties sitcom Gilligan’s Island had a healthy head of red hair. Sometime after the sixties a “ginger” became a person with red hair. I’m satisfied, so let’s move to a question more appropriate for this week. Why is (America’s) Thanksgiving celebrated on a Thursday?

Yes, it’s time for my annual Thanksgiving rant. Rather, my everything-steps-all-over-Thanksgiving rant. It’s not really an annual rant but perhaps it should be. Three years ago I had so much to vent about Thanksgiving’s due, it took me two blog posts to let off the steam (see A Distant Third). This year I realized, zero progress has been made since then. In fact, the situation is snowballing. Thanksgiving is finding less and less air as it gasps between the behemoths known as Halloween and Christmas.

Poor choice of word, “snowballing”. It’ll make readers think about Christmas and I need you to stay focused. My campaign is to keep each of the year-end holidays corralled into its respective month. In other words, November equals Thanksgiving. (Repeat ten times, please). Turkeys and pumpkin pie, not Santas and plum pudding.

There, I said it. Apologies to those of you who’ve already shopped and wrapped presents. Apologies to the rest of you who’ve already decorated your houses. I’m just trying to give Thanksgiving its rightful place among the “big three” instead of its laggard position as “third wheel”.

You can name a dozen things associated with Halloween, and two dozen more with Christmas. But with Thanksgiving? Three (at least here in America). We have the meal itself, the parades, and football. That’s pretty much it.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the American Thanksgiving trifecta. The meal is hanging in there despite efforts to make it healthier. Turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie are still Thanksgiving staples (while “tofurky” is not). I sometimes wonder why I don’t enjoy these foods on other days of the year as well. Also, more people make the Thanksgiving meal at home than order online or go to a restaurant. (Do I have the data to back this up? No, I do not.) But I must acknowledge Friendsgiving, which has become common enough to remove the quotation marks. Not only is Friendsgiving celebrated on any day but Thursday, the table spread can be decidedly different. Watch out. There may come a November when – GASP! – more people celebrate the “friends” version than the “family”.

Parades remain more about Thanksgiving than the other two holidays. You’ll find the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on television this week and at the same time, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Plymouth, MA host large-scale parades. But here’s my Davey-downer factoid. The Macy’s Parade may be the world’s largest (as well as the second-oldest in America) but it’s also an imposter. It began as the “Macy’s Christmas Parade” in 1924, designed to launch a longer retail season at the end of the year. So you see, the name may have changed but the parade is still decidedly “holly-jolly”.

Football brings out the smirk in sports fans again this Thanksgiving. As they have every year since 1934 (save the WWII years) the NFL’s Detroit Lions will be playing on Thanksgiving Day. As they have been every year (seemingly), the Detroit Lions are a truly awful football team. In the last twenty years the Lions have amassed exactly four winning seasons. This year? The Lions are the only team in the NFL without a win. The Lions are so bad in fact, the NFL has added two other games to your Thanksgiving Day lineup so you have options.

We’re almost done here, but don’t panic; I haven’t forgotten the original question. Why is Thanksgiving celebrated on a Thursday? Here’s the easy answer. President Lincoln made it so back in 1863, as the final Thursday in November. President Roosevelt also made it so back in 1941, more specifically the fourth Thursday in November. Yeah, but… why a Thursday?

Here’s the real answer (or at least my answer). Thanksgiving is on a Thursday. Thursday is named for the Norse God Thor. Thor is the God of Thunder. See the pattern? Thanksgiving-Thursday-Thor-Thunder. It’s the whole “Th” thing. Thanksgiving doesn’t really fit on a Friday (but maybe Friendsgiving does). Besides, by Friday we’ve forgotten all about turkey and stuffing as we turn to computers and shopping malls.

Now then, banish all that “Th” nonsense from memory. The real intent here is to give Thanksgiving its proper time and space mid-holiday season. Let’s move Turkey Day from “third wheel” to “equal wheel” by finding more Thanksgiving stakes to claim in the month of November. Maybe we should all dress up as pilgrims. Maybe we should also have our kids “trade” instead of “trick-or-treat”.

With that, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. And next week, I might even wish you a Merry Christmas. You know, in December.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Once-A-Year Cake-and-Cheer

I caught a radio show last week where a caller mentioned her birthday fell on December 25th. She lamented how, as a kid, she received presents for Christmas and others for her birthday, not knowing which were meant for which. Without missing a beat the radio host goes, “Hey! At least you get to share your birthday with Jesus! I have to share mine with Madonna!”

I decided to play the game myself (and you can too, at the Famous Birthdays website). Type your special day into the box at the top of the screen and up pop all these, uh, interesting people you share something of a kinship with. You’ll see names, ages, and occupations under big, colorful photos. People the website deems famous. But don’t get too excited now. I had to scroll through seventeen before I recognized anyone. Maybe that’s because their occupations are Rapper, YouTube Star, and TikTok Star? For Pete’s sake, can’t they have real jobs?

Mercifully, I find “real” birthday buddies among the self-proclaimed famous. Steve Perry – lead singer for the band Journey – shares my birthday, born eleven years before I was. So does Sam Cooke, whose soulful voice captured hearts in the 1960s. But one birthday buddy stands gracefully above the rest. Diane Lane, exactly three years my younger, is one of my favorite actresses. When Diane turned 14 in 1979, she debuted as the adorable lead in the France/Italy adventure A Little Romance. I’ve been smitten ever since.

Birthdays represent a variety of celebrations as we pass through life, don’t they? As babies, our parents celebrate for us since we have no clue what the fuss is all about. As young children, the celebrations become the most colorful: parties with friends of the same age and activities from amusement parks to backyard bouncy houses. As young adults, birthdays tend to be celebrated at restaurants and bars, with plenty of alcohol flowing. In the decades following we seem to favor SURPRISE! parties.

Now, as my sixtieth birthday looms like the next interstate exit, I’m all about more subdued celebrations. A quiet dinner out with my wife. A trio of phone calls from my kids. A single piece of birthday cake instead of something big enough to hold five dozen candles. Wouldn’t want the day to pass without acknowledgment but the simpler the gesture the better.

Speaking of birthday cake, it’s perhaps the single tie that binds as we celebrate our years young and old. I picture a baby’s birthday cake as small and round, with a big #1 candle on top. Cover your kid in plastic and put the cake close enough so he or she can dig in with both hands. We have these priceless and messy pictures for each one of our kids.

Young children have the most adventurous cakes. I picture a blank rectangle just waiting to be populated with frosting, decorations, and little toys, like an artist’s canvas. Dump trucks working on a cake-top construction site. Animals living in a cake-top jungle. Ballerinas dancing across a cake-top stage. The possibilities are endless.

After childhood, cake designs evolve to the age itself. Whether big wax numbers or individual candles, the focus of the cake becomes the number. After enough of those years, we try to be more subtle (ex. spell out the age with candles) so we don’t set the house on fire. Later in life, we save the biggest celebrations (and cakes) for the round numbers because ages 80, 90, and 100 are achievements in themselves, aren’t they?

There’s evidence to suggest birthdays and cakes have been a combo as far back as ancient Roman times but for me, birthday cake is simply a nod to happy childhood memories. Birthday-cake-flavored ice cream, cookies, and even protein bars are all the rage for this reason. We just want to be kids again, breathlessly anticipating the celebration of our special day.

Some content sourced from IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Two-Color Tangos

Last week I stopped at a traffic signal and it happened again: I had me a little Christmas moment. Visions of Santa Claus, sugar plums, and all that. The traffic light is red, you see, but then it changed to green. Combine those colors and presto! Dave goes all holly/jolly in the head. Can’t really explain it but at least, maybe, a brief bit of Christmas cheer keeps the road rage at bay.

When two colors tango, untold images fill my brain. Pair up red & green and I’m ready to wrap presents. Pair up light blue & cream and I’m lounging on a beach in Hawaii, frosty piña colada in hand. But maybe you’re different. Maybe you celebrate Hannukah (in which case you should lobby for blue & silver traffic lights). Or maybe your world of red & green is simply something other than Christmas. Strawberries. Tennis courts. Those colorful maracas you hear a-shake-shakin’ in a Latin band. A dozen roses.

If we were talking about single colors we’d be back in elementary school, wouldn’t we? Green as the grass, red as the fire truck, orange as the pumpkin, and so on. Not a lot of fun in that. Not to mention, a single color dancing the tango by itself would be awkward. But two colors? Now… now we’re getting closer to a barrel of monkeys.

Psychologists like their Rorschach inkblots well enough, but two-color tangos would be a more interesting reveal. Tell the patient to close their eyes and concentrate. Now hold up a card half-white & half-orange and say, “Okay, open your eyes. What’s the first thing you think of?” Creamsicles. Blue & yellow card? Swedish Flag. Purple & red? Sunset. You get the idea. But that’s just me. My morally straight brain sprints to morally straight images.

Let’s put a thug in the same psychologist’s chair. He’s got “better things” to do but somehow we’ve convinced him to take the two-color tango test. He doesn’t even have to concentrate. Black & white? The police car headed his direction. Black & gray? His favorite handheld weapon. Black & red? Brimstone and fire in the afterlife known as Hell. Creepy, right? At least you have him in a chair instead of out on the streets. Might want to summon more psychologists for further evaluation.

The irony of my thug friend (foe?) is black & red is my favorite tango; more vivid than my red & green Christmases. I’m a nut for licorice, you see. Always have been. Love the whips, twists, shoestrings, Australian, salty, All-Sorts. You name it as long as it’s black or red. I prescribed myself thousands of Good & Plenty “pills” as a kid. I’ve eaten enough black licorice in my life to risk the consequences of this poor fellow’s habit.

[Author’s note: Any licorice with a color other than black or red does not deserve to be called “licorice”. Green Apple? Blue Raspberry? Watermelon? B-L-E-C-H. Those colors are fully inferior to the candy. They’re also trying to tango solo, which we’ve already established as awkward.]

Despite my overconsumption of black & red licorice, live and breathe I continue to do. And my two-color tango images are unfailingly consistent. Play me a game of checkers? Pass the licorice. Red bell pepper and black olive added to my salad? Where’s the licorice? Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday Night Football? Fill the snack bowl with licorice. Venomous eastern coral snake? WHOA… hang on now. No licorice image there, not at all. More like get me the hell outta my brain.

Before I get the coral snake outta my brain, let me pass along a PSA. The coral snake and the harmless scarlet king snake look remarkably similar with their bands of black, red, and yellow. If you come across one of these bad boys, try to remember this little “nursery rhyme”:

Red Touch Yellow – Kills a Fellow
Red Touch Black – Venom Lack
Yellow Touch Red – Soon You’ll Be Dead
Red Touch Black – Friend of Jack

Fun, huh? Better yet just look at the snake’s head. If it’s black, run away. FAST.

I planned to finish this post with three-color tangos and the images I came up with there. After all, traffic lights just as often go from green to yellow to red. Bell peppers. Macaws. Skittles candies (“Taste the Rainbow!”) But let’s be honest; I don’t have those images at all. Instead, I’m fully focused on speeding through the intersection before the signal wants me to stop.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

It’s Been a Silent Night

When singer Amy Grant released “Tennessee Christmas” in 2016 it’d been years since she recorded a holiday collection. In fact, her platinum-level “A Christmas Album” arrived way back in 1983; her triple-platinum “Home for Christmas” in 1992. “Tennessee Christmas” didn’t achieve platinum, gold, or anything else for that matter. As my brother said at the time, “She never should’ve done it.” He’s right. Amy should’ve released just “I Need a Silent Night” and called it good.

Amy Grant can still pen lyrics (even if her voice isn’t as strong as it used to be). “I Need a Silent Night” asks us to find the true meaning of Christmas in the midst of the inevitable commercial distractions. Instead of “December traffic” and “Christmas rush” and “Shopping and buying and standing forever in line”, Amy asks:

I need a silent night, a holy night
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night

As if we’ve been granted Amy’s wish (ha), this season has been remarkably placid. The message of Advent is always “prepare” and that’s what we’re doing. It’s just – unlike most years – we’re not using words like “rush” and “chaos”. We’re experiencing more of a “silent night” instead.

Our Christmas prep never begins until after Thanksgiving (I stand on holiday principles here) but by the following Saturday I was eagerly unpacking the decorations and streaming holiday tunes. More importantly, I also found myself saying “yes” to just about every reason for the season:

Since we can’t have in-person services our church offered Advent wreaths to build and display in whatever room you “go to church” in at home. We asked for a wreath as soon as they were available.
A family involved in our local 4-H advertised festive bags of scented pine cones as a fundraiser for their activities. We bought two bags and they delivered them straight to our door. There’s nothing that says “Christmas” like the tiny voice of a five-year-old saying, “Thank you, Mr. Wilson!”
Our church set up a virtual giving tree where you can pick presents from a list, buy them, and return them to the church for distribution to needy families. I bought six.
We’ve been baking up a kitchen storm so we decided to put together plates of cookies for our neighbors and deliver them. Front doors were opened cautiously, to which we said, “Well, this may be the only chance we get to see you face-to-face this year. Merry Christmas!”
We’ll be having drive-in Christmas Eve services this year so our church put out a big bin of ornaments, asking us to decorate them and put them on trees surrounding the parking lot. I grabbed several.
Starbucks moves to Christmas drinks and goodies shortly after Halloween. There’s this unspoken opportunity to “pay it backwards” by taking care of the car behind you in the drive-thru, and then speeding off to remain anonymous. I’ve been doing this for weeks.
Colorado Springs advertises a Christmas For Kids effort where you’re assigned a needy child’s Christmas list. You buy the gifts, wrap them up, and pass them on to case workers who make sure the kids get them in time for Christmas. I sponsored two.

Most of these Christmastime gestures (and why should they only happen at Christmas, right?) would not find room in our “normal years”. We’d be rushing about trying to find one last gift, throwing up Christmas lights and decorations, and hastily preparing our cards to put in the mail. We’d be wrapping presents ’til well past midnight on Christmas Eve. Yet this year we’re completely organized and ready, including all those meaningful extras I mentioned above.

Let me “wrap” (ha) with one more holiday task we completed earlier than usual: decorating our tree. Christmas trees must’ve been in high demand (or short supply) this year because our local lot only had one left in the 10′-12′ range we prefer. It’s tall and thin (kind of like you see in Whoville in the original “Grinch” movie). It’s so tall our angel at the top seems poised in the heavens, which is wonderfully appropriate this year. She was the only decor on the tree all of last Sunday before we added everything else the following night. So now our tree boasts the usual organized chaos of lights and ornaments. But it’s only the angel I see. She’s watching over us and giving us exactly what we need this year: a silent night, a holy night.

This post is in memory of Marion.