...well in some spots around here. The midwest US just got a winter blast and where I domicile we've been in the high sixties (Farenheit for those on the metric system) making it difficult to get into the holiday spirit. Normally American college football games feature an event that takes place in the stadium parking lot hours before the contest begins called tailgating. This is where revelers sporting team apparel (jackets, sweaters, beanies, thermal underwear, etc) eat and drink copious amounts of grilled meats and sides washed down with beer or other spirits usually in the frosty fall air. This year it seems to have been replaced by a beach party with temperatures warm enough for t shirts, shorts and flipflops! I realize it is still fall and will be for a few more weeks but global warming give us a break! Or is it global warming? Could this lack of chill be the result of El Nino 2015 winds (pardon the lack of proper Spanish punctuation)? Got me. All I know is it's too warm for sweaters. Start with one in the morning and regret it by afternoon. Flu and upper resperitory bugs are running rampant. Doctors offices are full of coughing, sneezing and mucous spewing patients. Don't forget to get your flu shot. Of course it might not be the right strain, but get it anyway. It's kind of like one day football fantasy leagues. Invest a few dollars in a shot and, if you contract the right combination of viral bugs, you could win. Results are not guaranteed.Thanksgiving for those who don't celebrate such a thing dates back to our colonization period. Pilgrims traveled to American shores to avoid religeous persecution back in England. They came here and, well, one thing led to another and the indian population, (not knowing any better) shared their food with the starving population and a feast was had by all...before the killing and displacement of the indigenous people by those colonists and/or the European diseases they brought with them. The indians got their licks in and took a few settlers with them, but that's not a Thanksgiving story. None-the-less we commemorate the spirit of that happenstance or that's what we were taught as children. Turkey for Thanksgiving is the tradition. Apparently the bird is quite different today than it's free range great, great, great grand daddy was in colonial times. They were cagy, quick and hard to catch. Founding father Ben Frankln championed the turkey as our national bird. He had a list of reasons and one had to do with it providing sustenance to the early settlers. So the honor went to the bald eagle and the turkey continues to provide sustenance...except for the one the President pardons at the White House every year. The majestic bald eagle won out in the end.
Black Friday, I believe is a U.S. only event where for one day the stores stop screwing you with their regular retail prices and drop their drawers allowing you to buy stuff priced how it should be all year long. It used to start at midnight the Friday after Thanksgiving and end at the stroke of 12 Saturday morning. Now there are Pre Black Friday sales that last a week. And I was introduced to post Black Friday sales that end next Friday. I don't get it. Stop calling it a DAY if it's a WEEK! I hate to tell those Madison Ave Advertising folks, but we the pulic know the difference between a day and a week. We learned that before we learned to tell what it means when the big hand is on the twelve. The expectation is when the turkey's been eaten and the dishes are washed and put away and you've eaten so much you are uncomfortable and have to pop that top button on your pants, you are now ready to pack your car with a sleeping bag or lawn chairs, food and portable potty to line up outside a big box toy store, electronics seller or major department store and roost until those doors open and you can be the first to grab that thingy little Suzy will die if she doesn't get and it is seriously marked down for the first 50 shoppers. Only in the USA.
At 12 midnight that Friday morning is the official start of the Christmas season. Pumpkin spice lattes disappear replaced by peppermint bark coffee and fall colors give way to RED and GREEN everwhere. No Dickensian "Bah Humbug" here, just bewilderment in how quickly things change. They started playing Christmas music on the radio on November first. Halloween! WHAT?! Ghosties and witches and deck the halls with ghouls and holly? Who's programming those stations?
So next comes the tree and hauling out the decorations. I just mowed the lawn?! You don't mow the lawn Christmas time in my neck of the woods! We used to joke about having a shirtsleeve Christmas. Maybe it's going turn out to be a shorts, tank and tube top Christmas. Southern California, Nevada lowlands, parts of New Mexico, Texas and Miami I get it...but not 'round heah! We aren't that far south of the Mason/Dixon line. I'll stop my whining and get back to Black Friday week shopping. I still have 12 minutes before the clock rolls to Sunday and I could lose the chance to overspend on something I will forget who I got it for by Christmas! Oops...11 minutes.
More photos next time out.
Mike
