"As Yellow as Gold"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Here is a pumpkin, fluted, golden,
Written o'er with customs olden
Out of bygone days.
Cinderella's ancient glory,
Sung in song and told in story,
Suits its yellow blaze.

Tables at the first Thanksgiving,
When colonial dames where living,
Shewed its golden sheer.
Still it smiles a friendly greeting
At the happy family meeting
On the feast-day dear

Christmas rooms are gay with holly,
Christmas sees the merry folly
Of the mistletoe.
Easter lilies, pure and stately,
In the springtime bloom sedately,
When soft breezes blow.

Autumn dressed the woods in splendor;
But their colors, rich and tender,
All have passed away.
Now the pumpkin, ripe and mellow,
Keeps a tint of Autumn's yellow
For Thanksgiving Day.

Mary E. Knowlton (1904)

Eeeeek!

High Winds May Blow Out Parade Balloons

Hard to believe they used to release the balloons at the end of the parade for people to find!

Famous Thanksgiving Songs

One secular, one religious.

This is the long version of Lydia Maria Child's "A Boy's Thanksgiving Day," a.k.a. "Over the River and Through the Wood." Nope, they're not going to Grandmother's (or Grandfather's, rather) house for Christmas. A very Northern New England poem!

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood-
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood.
with a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark and the children hark,
as we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, "Ting a ling ding!"
Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood-
no matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get the sleigh upset
into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all, and play snowball
and stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,
trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound!
For 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow-
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his paw with a loud bow-wow,
and thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood-
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, "O, dear, the children are here,
bring pie for everyone."

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmothers cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

About Lydia Maria Child

We Gather Together

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His name: He forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
And pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

A Hymn's Long Journey Home:
The Surprising Origins of "We Gather Together," a Thanksgiving Standard

This isn't the version I learned, incidentally. Apparently there is a Catholic version that contains the following verse:

We gather together to sing the Lord's praises,
To worship the Father through Jesus His son.
In this celebration all sing with jubilation;
We are His holy people whose freedom He won.

But I don't remember the rest. I was so very puzzled the first time I watched the America segment "Home From Home" and heard them singing "We Gather Together" with the three verses stated above.

And just for a bit of Thanksgiving jocularity (I can hear William Christopher doing Father Mulcahy now), here's Tom Lehrer's version of that venerable hymn:

We gather together to ask the lord's blessing
For turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce.
It was slightly distressing, but now we're convalescing,
So sing praises to his name and forget not to floss.

Our nearest and dearest we don't want confessing,
It's sort of depressing to have them so near.
Our feelings suppressing for lightly acquiescing,
And perfectly professing we're glad they were here.

We gathered together and got the lord's blessing
Of course we're just guessing 'cause how can you tell?
Our stomachs are bloating, our kidneys nearly floating,
Hellos are very nice, but goodbyes can be swell.

Excitement in the "Big Apple"

They're polishing up the trumpets and doing a last fitting for Santa Claus in New York for the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade (warning: site requires Flash 7).

I still miss the old CBS parades. Originally (or at least when I first watched them in the early 60s) they were hosted by Captain Kangaroo. Then William Conrad took over. He sat on a warm plush "men's study" type set with a big fireplace sipping a toddy as he introduced the different segments, which switched to the guest announcers actually freezing out there in the cold, especially in Toronto (Eaton's Santa Claus Parade) and Detroit (Hudson's Department Store parade). I think the Santa parade is still held, but it's not sponsored by Eaton's anymore (I believe the store has gone out of business). I wonder if they still have the Storybook Land theme for the floats. It seems old hat for today's kids who play Nintendo and listen to I-Pods. I think I read the Detroit parade is still going on, but no longer sponsored by Hudson's. I'm not sure any of the Hudson's stores are still around, but their subsidiary, Target, is everywhere.

The old Gimbels parade, of course, in Philadelphia, is long gone. Macy's (ooops, Macy*s), overcame their old rival years ago and then managed to eat up Atlanta's Davidson's and Rich's stores, Boston's venerable Jordan Marsh and Filenes, and dozens of others. The more famous Philadelphia parade has always been the Mummers' Parade at New Year's, but I'm not sure it's broadcast nationally any longer.

The kiss of death at CBS for me was when they began broadcasting the Hawaiian parade. Yawn. Who wants to look at dopey flowers before Christmas?

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas After All

Quite possibly the best Christmas book I've ever read.

I've been reading them since the 1960s, when my favorite was Frances Frost's Sleigh Bells for Windy Foot from the school library. The story doesn't necessarily need to involve magic, like The Legend of Holly Claus; even more I like stories of regular families having a warm holiday season: The Tuckers: Cottage Holiday is a prime example. The new Callahan Cousins book is pretty good in that department, but it can't compare to the three examples above, or A Christmas Carol, or Christmas After All.

The "Dear America" books are something I can take or leave. I got a couple with good coupons and the rest on the remainder shelf. My Secret War was pretty good, as was When Christmas Comes Again (not really a Christmas book, but about the "Hello girls" in World War I), and the story of the Italian girl crossing the great plains. The Titanic book was average and the Pearl Harbor book was pretty bad. I've heard some pretty scathing criticisms about the two books involving Native American characters.

But in Christmas After All, Kathryn Lasky has created a masterpiece within the diary format of the books.

It is the story of Minnie Swift, youngest of four sisters, her precocious genius younger brother Ozzie, and her parents during the days of the Great Depression. Dad's job is going badly and the family is reduced to shutting down rooms in their home to cut down on coal bills. They rarely have meat for supper, but eat a succession of aspics and "O'Grotons," as Minnie calls them.

Then, as December begins, Willie Faye Darling comes into their life. Willie Faye is the only daughter of cousins of Minnie's mother. Her parents, from a small town called Heart's Bend, Texas, have died after losing a battle with life in the Dust Bowl. Willie Faye is Minnie's age (11), but looks two years younger due to malnutrition and hardships. She arrives at the Swift home covered in dust and with a kitten named Tumbleweed whose nose she had to suction out morning, noon and night to keep him from smothering. Willie Faye has never seen an indoor bathroom, gone to a movie, read a Buck Rogers comic, or listened to the radio, so Minnie thinks that Willie Faye will have a lot to learn from them.

She never dreams what she—and the entire family—will learn from the fragile-looking but tough little girl from the Dust Bowl when the ravages of the Depression begin leaching away the family's security.

I have many of Lasky's other books and love them as well (the only series of hers I couldn't get into was the Starbuck family books), including Prank, which takes place in East Boston, and her adult mysteries starring Calista Jacobs. But Christmas After All has a special magic to it, perhaps because it is based on Lasky's mother's experiences as well as her own and the characters ring true.

Christmas After All is highly recommended.

The "First" Thanksgiving Actually Comes at the End

Here's Caleb Johnson's MayflowerHistory.com site, which includes a review of last night's Desperate Crossing, the three-hour (with commercials) documentary re-inactment of the Pilgrims, beginning with their move to Leyden in the Netherlands to escape the wrath of the King of England and ending with "the first Thanksgiving," which, as has been pointed out on many sites, really has nothing to do with what the Pilgrims would have considered a "thanksgiving," which was a day of prayer and fasting. The scene we re-inact today is what the Pilgrims would have known as a harvest festival or "Harvest Home."

Plymouth Rock? No one even remembered it until 1841 when an elderly man claimed that the big rock the citizens of Plymouth were about to build a wharf over was, according to his grandfather, who heard it from his grandfather, where the Pilgrims had stepped off the Mayflower in 1620 (actually, they came ashore in small boats). The Rock actually remained in the wharf until Victorian-era Americans, venerating the Pilgrim forefathers, extracted it (and broke it in half). Most of the cute little myths we believe about Thanksgiving were actually created by the Victorians, including the black Pilgrim hat that still serves as a symbol for the Massachusetts Turnpike and the big-buckle shoes and the legend of how popcorn was first eaten at the feast attended by the surviving Pilgrims and Massasoit's Wampanoug tribe.

I recorded the whole thing which is a good thing because I missed a lot fussing over that frelling gas log with James. I did enjoy what I saw, although I wonder if the real Pilgrims (and "Strangers") actually did use the very formal forms of speech you often heard in the program. Johnson comments about several scenes sounding stage-y.

(Music Listening To: Windham Hill, "Thanksgiving," specifically that very American hymn, "Simple Gifts.")

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Callahan Cousins: Together Again

Well, I might as well review the fourth Callahan Cousins book here, since I've hit all the others.

We've been through Hillary being insecure about her parents' divorce (The Summer Begins), Neeve being insecure about a family secret (Home Sweet Home), and Kate being insecure about not being cool (Keeping Cool). Now it's bookworm Phoebe's turn to be insecure—about Christmas celebrations and faith.

In this fourth book summer is over, but the girls have once again gathered at Grandmother Gee's big house on Gull Island to celebrate the holidays. Phoebe, who's from Florida and the voracious reader in the bunch, has one big wish: to celebrate the kind of Christmas she's always read about in her beloved books. Not a snowless, cheerless (at least to Phoebe) Christmas where her dad and sisters decorate with tacky garish plastic ornaments and sing kareoke carols, but one full of sleigh rides, and home-made gifts, ornaments, and treats, and snow, snow, snow. She comes to Gull Island complete with her own "wish book" (a notebook of magazine and newspaper clippings) about just how "it should be" and ends up roping her cousins into helping her achieve this goal through helping her with the things they do best (creative Kate will help them do crafts and baking, sporty Hillary will arrange sledding and other winter athletics, friendly Neeve will be social director for parties).

Of course Phoebe goes overboard—it's a lietmotif of the series—but her desire is so charming that I really enjoyed the story. Come on, who among you that is a Christmas lover has not wished for the grand and glorious holiday you've read about in books and seen in the movies? Who hasn't wanted to have a grand party with friends gathered around a magnificent old-fashioned tree (perhaps with candles, however dangerous) and then go out caroling house to house, filled with the spirit of bonhomie? To celebrate a deep, meaningful Christmas like the Ingalls family or Anne Shirley or the March girls and eschewing the canned music, buy-buy-buy commercials and adverts, and the plastic sentiments? I know the idea appeals to me tremendously (although not the tree with the candles!); I spent my childhood wishing I could go to one of those parties like on Petticoat Junction where everyone ends the night singing old songs—or Christmas carols!—around the piano.

The generosity of her cousins (except for Neeve's occasional protests) and finally her grandmother enables Phoebe to have the Christmas she wants, but there are a few bobbles along that way including a warm front—Phoebe, for all her reading, seems to have missed the fact that shorelines and islands don't usually get the type of Vermont-like snow she's pining for and it melts faster when it does snow—and interference from snotty Sloan Bicket. There is a more serious thread woven through this outing: Phoebe's reluctance to show emotion and also her need for something spiritual to believe in for the future (hence the heavily angel-centric theme that comes into play soon after the book begins).

It's a fun Christmas outing with some thought behind it and a good way to finish out the tetralogy.

Splendor and Spectacle

If not England, this is where I'd like to go someday: German Christmas Markets. I've read and seen photos of these wonderful places for years. Probably couldn't afford a thing after travelling there, but just being among all those lovely ornaments and the smell of gingerbread and spices...heaven!

Christmas DVD Wish List

#1: The House Without a Christmas Tree
#2: The Gathering

Also, all those great Perry Como Christmas shows.

A couple of obscure ones: Simple Gifts, which was a collection of animated shorts that appeared on PBS in the late 70s. One of them was about the Christmas truce, another was about "The Great Frost," a third was taken from a letter written by Theodore Roosevelt as a boy, etc. This is a much-requested item on TV Party. Also, from the same era, PBS did a special based on Norman Corwin's radio play in rhyme, "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas." The gimmick to this one was that the first half hour showed how a radio show was produced, and then the story was presented as part of the second half hour. The show featured radio veterans such as Ezra Stone, plus Edward Asner as Santa Claus.

The half-hour animated version of A Christmas Carol featuring Sir Michael Redgrave. This was done in the style of Victorian drawings and won an Oscar for best animated short.

REVIEW: "Christmas Classics," Volume 1 DVD

This is the title of an el cheapo DVD I picked up at Fred's (sort of a poor man's Woolworth's) in a paper sleeve; only cost me 50¢ as I recall. It has three 1950s Christmas presentations on it, including the one featured on the cover, the Christmas episode of Date With the Angels starring Betty White and Bill Williams.

The first offering is "A String of Blue Beads," taken from the classic Fulton Oursler story about a storekeeper named Pete, who, embittered after the death of his fiancé, finds life again on Christmas Eve thanks to a little girl. This is a very short story that has been embellished mercilessly for its 26-minute timeslot; some of the embellishments, such as showing him with Marilyn, the girl he loves, are fine additions, but had they stuck to Oursler's original dialog it would have been a lot better. The whole cast is very stiff and Louis Jourdan is just not my idea of Pete. The "acts" of the story are introduced and closed by marionettes and the passing of time is, interestingly, illustrated by seasonal paintings from a Manhattan art gallery.

It is also filmed in some rudimentary version of color which has altered and faded so that the only two colors seem to be red and green (with the occasional flash of beige). It was so ennerving that I finally turned the color down and watched it in good old-fashioned black and white.

The second cut is from a religious series called Crossroads, which is, the titles and the credits tell us stenoriously, vetted by a military Protestant chaplain, a Catholic priest, and a rabbi. The story, "Our First Christmas Tree," concerned a German minister who planned to introduce a Christmas tree into the service and was roundly cheered by the local children and condemned by the children's parents, who think the minister is taking their children away from "the Bible, the Psalms, and hymns" and leading them to worship a pagan idol. These neighborhood busybodies never give the well-meaning reverend a chance to explain and are about to tear down the tree when the minister's brother, also a man of the cloth, explains to them how the tree fits into the ceremony. I have heard several stories of the origin of the Christmas tree, the two most popular being the story of Martin Luther coming home in the snow one night and seeing the moon sparkling on the snow-covered branches of the fir trees, which led him to create a similar scene in his home with candles on a small cut tabletop tree, and the story of St. Boniface, who, seeing Druids about to make a human sacrifice, chops down the Holy Oak and a small pine tree springs up in its place.

But I had never heard the story the pastor tells his brother's congregation, about all the animals and plants going to Bethlehem to worship the Christ Child and of the struggling little cedar that almost gives its life to do so, and is rewarded by God with everlasting life and has stars rained down upon its branches.

Of course the congregation is abashed and the pastor and the happy children have the Christmas tree. (One of the boys is played by Todd Ferrell, who played Timmy's buddy Boomer for a year on Lassie.) Again, done in a rather stiff style, but with a charm of its own.

The Date With the Angels "Christmas Show" probably would come as a revelation to devotees of today's sitcoms. While there are two-tart tongued characters in the story—Vicki Angel's (Betty White) friend Connie, played by Nancy Kulp, who later went on to fame as Jane Hathaway in The Beverly Hillbillies, and Richard Deacon—Gus and Vicki Angel are our sweet-tempered protagonists (not an insult is passed between them) who help an elderly neighbor (the father of Richard Deacon's character) get a Santa Claus job at the department store where Connie works for a Mr. Scrooge-ish manager and also assist a lost child at the store. It's very sweet and nostalgic, and all three are interesting representations of 1950s Christmas programming.

I haven't seen Volume 2, if one actually exists, but it would be interesting to see what was on it.

XM Holiday on the Air!

Whoa! I was cooling my heels waiting for the train and paging through the XM stations and found their Christmas channel, "Holly." What a surprise, then, to find that they actually have five Christmas channels, but the others don't start until Thanksgiving.

It doesn't show up on this page, but there's also "Radio Hanukkah" on from December 15 to 25.

Checked to see if Sirius had their music channel up, but I don't find it. Dish Network's Christmas music channel isn't on yet, either. Perhaps on the 15th.

(Coda, November 20: Sirius' holiday music starts on Thanksgiving. They are again taking over the Starlite channel for popular music, one of the country channels for country music, and the Pops channel for classical Christmas music.)

"Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November..."

If your only experience with the name "Fawkes" is reading Harry Potter novels, here's the skinny on Guy Fawkes, whose Gunpowder Plot and its defeat have provided the British with an annual holiday devoted to fireworks and bonfires.

Lesser known is that Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated in "the colonies" at one time, although its name was changed and some definite Catholic bashing went on.

"17th and 18th-century Bostonians celebrated the anniversary of the English Gunpowder Plot as Pope's Day. To mark the occasion, residents of the North and South Ends held separate parades, carrying effigies of the Pope with them. Both parades led to the center of town, near the Old State House. When the two groups met, a riot typically ensued; each group fought to secure the other's effigy of the Pope. The group that succeeded in doing so was declared the winner."

From Boston History.org

More on Guy Fawkes Day:

Fawksian Society Website

Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night

Wikipedia Entry

Scrap Album's Guy Fawkes Victorian Images

Woodlands Junior School's Bonfire Night Site

Holiday Spot's Guy Fawkes Day Site

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas in New England

This slim book by Amy Whorf McGuiggan, published by Commonwealth Press, is a delightful compendium of short takes about notable Yuletide events from the New England states, with a little Christmas history tossed in. Since many people's idealized Christmas is that of a New England Christmas, with sleigh rides, fresh balsam trees, etc., it's always hard to realize that for a long time, due to Puritan influence, the very word "Christmas" was anathema in the far Northeast, unlike the South which celebrated with guns and bonfires and the middle states with their settlers of German and Dutch ancestry, who had Christmas trees and the custom of St. Nicholas.

McGuiggan's text, enlivened by black and white photos and a color insert, talks about the various memorable parts of a New England Christmas: fresh balsam trees from Maine, Nova Scotia's annual tree gift to Boston in memory of that city's assistance after the deadly explosion in Halifax Harbor in 1916, the "Flying Santa" who for years dropped gifts to the isolated lighthouse keepers' families, a bell factory that made the original sleigh bells (far from being just "something pretty" to listen to when you went sleighing, bells were actually required by law, so pedestrians could hear the silent sleighs coming), Boston's "Christmas for the Horses," charity events, etc. Some very touching personal stories are included.

I'm hoping McGuiggan is aiming for a sequel, because it beats me how she's done a book about notable New England Christmas traditions and not once mentioned Edaville Railroad! Now Edaville USA (it's still open), this is a small steam train setup in South Carver, Massachusetts, that is especially popular in the fall and winter. It was closed in 1991 but was resurrected in 1999. Before the cranberry harvests, Edaville would offer a ride through the cranberry bogs and then take riders to a pumpkin patch with refreshments of hot cider and other goodies. But Christmas is when Edaville really "shines." They have a seven-million-strong holiday light display and other events.

I also didn't see the fact that the first department store Santa Claus originated in New England. In 1841, a Philadelphia storekeeper named Parkinson had a man dress as "Crisscringle" and enter his store through the chimney as a publicity stunt (a pivotal scene in Jeff Guinn's just-published Great Santa Search), but the masqued Santa didn't remain at the store and talk to children. Fifty years later, the Boston Store in Brockton, Massachusetts, featured a Santa who sat among the toys and listened to children's wishes for Christmas, the first real "department store Santa."

Since New Year's is part of the Christmas season, I also expected to see some events in that area mentioned, especially "First Night," which originated in Boston.

However, I give the contents of this volume a solid B+ and hope Ms. McGuiggan brings us another volume in the future.

Hallowtide

The name "Hallowe'en" is a a corruption of "All Hallow's Eve," which is the night before All Saint's Day, November 1. The following day, today, is All Souls' Day, where prayers are said for those who have died. The entire period is called "Hallowtide."

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: All Souls' Day

123Holiday.net's All Souls' Day Page

During the 19th and 20th centuries children would go "souling"—rather like carol singing—requesting alms or soul cakes:

A soul, a soul, a soul cake.
Please good missus a soul cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us merry.
Up with your kettles and down with your pans,
Give us an answer and we'll be gone.
Little Jack, Jack sat on his gate,
Crying for butter to butter his cake.
One for St. Peter, two for St. Paul,
Three for the man who made us all.

The "Soulers" would go around the houses singing this song. Soul-caking has survived throughout the west Midlands, from Coventry to Manchester to Sheffield.

From Woodlands Junior School's Facts About November.

"Souling" is thought to be one of the origins of "trick or treating" on Hallowe'en.

Additional lyrics:

God Bless the master of this house, the mistress also,
And all the little children who around your table grow.
Likewise your men and maidens, your cattle and your store,
And all that dwells within your gates we wish you ten times more.

The lanes are very dirty and my shoes are very thin.
I've got a little pocket I can put a penny in.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha' penny will do;
If you haven't got a ha' penny, then God bless you.

You can see that it shares some similar lyrics with the round "Christmas Is Coming (The Goose Is Getting Fat)."

Here's a soul cake recipe:

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup caster/superfine sugar
4 cups plain flour, sifted
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon allspice
3 tablespoons currants
a little milk

Method

- Cream the butter and sugar together until pale in colour and fluffy in texture.
- Beat in the egg yolks.
- Fold in the sifted flour and spices.
- Stir in the currants.
- Add enough milk to make a soft dough.
- Form into flat cakes and mark each top with a cross.
- Bake on a well-greased baking tray in a hot oven until golden."

Peter, Paul and Mary sing "A Soalin'" (sic) on their "Holiday Celebration" CD.

Found This a Bit Late

Saved for next year:

Carve Your Own Pumpkin

"Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet..."

"...give me something good to eat...look out, look out, the goblins are out!"

Which means I watched the For Better or For Worse Hallowe'en special, and then It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and then it was time to man the door for the real-life Hallowe'en denizens.

I wore my cat outfit (black sweats, white gloves, and a black and white cat mask) and got lots of laughs from the adults taking the children around. There were several little girls dressed as cats and they seemed astonished to meet yet another cat! (Another tiny blond boy, however, seemed a bit overwhelmed by the costume and almost started to cry until I showed him it was a mask, after which he solemnly told me "Bye-bye.") I also had several compliments from the adults and the older kids about the decorations on the porch and in the foyer, which made me feel really chuffed! (A useful word that.)

The little girl next door was Elmo, and we had several Disney princesses, a cool kid in black robes with red eyes that glowed from a distance, a Ninja Turtle, various monsters and ghouls, several skeletons, Raggedy Ann, and too many others to remember. Everyone was happy and polite (no slouching teens who made no effort at a costume) and the little ones ran about shrieking happily. All the candy was gone and I had to turn away six kids, so that means we had about 76 in two hours and ten minutes.

Pidgie chirbled through much of the procedure and Willow of course barked. I can't remember when I enjoyed myself and at the same time felt so lonely and melancholy in my life.

Spooks and Goblins from Years Past

Vintage Halloween Postcard Gallery

Early 1900s Crepe Paper Halloween Costume

Old Fashioned Halloween Party

In Color...

I had just finished looking at photos on the Vermont Fall Foliage website—the color was spectacular this year!; I now have their photo of Killington as my wallpaper—and just happened to read this article about hiking Vermont's Long Trail afterwards:

"Take up the trail again, follow it to a mountain crest, and you will see something that is not quite like anything else. There is nothing bleak and aloof about these mountains; they are soft, rounded, friendly giants clad in incomparably beautiful garments and holding in their laps, like toys, the homes of men. Here and there is a silver pendant on a silver chain, for there are lakes and streams without end. North and south is the tumbled green range; shading to blue in the distance; east, across the multicolored woods annd hills, are the White Mountains; west and four thousand feet below, in the oldest valley in America, Lake Champlain and its islands stretch out of sight; and close beyond are the purple Adirondacks, fold upon fold. For a hundred miles in every direction the cup of beauty is full to the brim."

Merritt Parmalee Allen, "Let's Take the Trail," St. Nicholas 1928

All painted so well in words!

"Shopping for a Man"

This was on my Christmas to the Max list; had to share:

Buying gifts for men is not nearly as complicated as it is for women. Follow these rules and you should have no problems.
Rule #1:
When in doubt - buy him a cordless drill. It does not matter if he already has one. I have a friend who owns 17 and he has yet to complain. As a man, you can never have too many cordless drills. No one knows why.
Rule #2:
If you cannot afford a cordless drill, buy him anything with the word ratchet or socket in it. Men love saying those two words. "Hey George, can I borrow your ratchet?" "OK. By-the-way, are you through with my 3/8-inch socket yet?" Again, no one knows why.
Rule #3:
If you are really, really broke, buy him anything for his car. A 99-cent ice scraper, a small bottle of deicer or something to hang from his rear view mirror. Men love gifts for their cars. No one knows why.
Rule #4:
Do not buy men socks. Do not buy men ties. And never buy men bathrobes. I was told that if God had wanted men to wear bathrobes, he wouldn't have invented Jockey shorts.
Rule #5:
You can buy men new remote controls to replace the ones they have worn out. If you have a lot of money buy your man a big-screen TV with the little picture in the corner. Watch him go wild as he flips, and flips, and flips.
Rule #6:
Do not buy a man any of those fancy liqueurs. If you do, it will sit in a cupboard for 23 years. Real men drink whiskey or beer.
Rule #7:
Do not buy any man industrial-sized canisters of after shave or deodorant. I'm told they do not stink - they are earthy.
Rule #8:
Buy men label makers. Almost as good as cordless drills. Within a couple of weeks there will be labels absolutely everywhere. "Socks. Shorts. Cups. Saucers. Door. Lock. Sink." You get the idea. No one knows why.
Rule #9:
Never buy a man anything that says "some assembly required" on the box. It will ruin his Special Day and he will always have parts left over.
Rule #10:
Good places to shop for men include Northwest Iron Works, Parr Lumber, Home Depot, John Deere, Valley RV Center, and Les Schwab Tire. (NAPA Auto Parts and Sear's Clearance Centers are also excellent men's stores. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know what it is. "From NAPA Auto, eh? Must be something I need. Hey! Isn't this a starter for a '68 Ford Fairlane? Wow! Thanks.")
Rule #11:
Men enjoy danger. That's why they never cook - but they will barbecue. Get him a monster barbecue with a 100-pound propane tank. Tell him the gas line leaks. "Oh the thrill! The challenge! Who wants a hamburger?"
Rule #12:
Tickets to a Red Wing/Lions/Pistons/Tigers game are a smart gift. However, he will not appreciate tickets to "A Retrospective of 19th Century Quilts." Everyone knows why.
Rule #13:
Men love chainsaws. Never, ever, buy a man you love a chainsaw. If you don't know why - please refer to Rule #8 and what happens when he gets a label maker.
Rule #14:
It's hard to beat a really good wheelbarrow or an aluminum extension ladder. Never buy a real man a step ladder. It must be an extension ladder. No one knows why.
Rule #15:
Rope. Men love rope. It takes us back to our cowboy origins, or at least The Boy Scouts. Nothing says love like a hundred feet of 3/8" manila rope. No one knows why.

Breezes!

A cold front pushed its way through last night so the first thing I did upon arising was fling open the windows to be greeted by a sweet autumn breeze. I decided to have breakfast at the Starbuck's at Barnes & Noble and just for the heck of it ducked next door to CD Warehouse (they sell used items)—and got an astonishingly good deal on the new release of Little Mermaid and fourth season of Hogan's Heroes. Also found Bambi II at a very good price and a CD of Christmas music totally done by brass orchestras.

Since James' mom and sister (cross fingers) are spending Thanksgiving with us, I bought a fall tablecloth at Linens'n'Things with one of my coupons.

I also went to Garden Ridge looking for something but didn't find it. However, upon walking in I was surrounded by Christmas decorations glittering to my right and fall decorations glowing to my left. Summer has been so hard on my health that I had to resist the urge to spin about like Mary Tyler Moore and pronounce happily "I'm home! I'm home!" since it was all so welcoming.

Came home to find the house cool and breezy and was feeling so chipper I committed poetry:

Vivid blue sky,
autumn leaves fly--
gold, orange, red.
Summer has fled
back to her den.
Can't wait till when
cooling winds blow,
hinting of snow.
Bonfires burn
while the leaves turn,
and gingerbread
children are bred;
savor near fire,
after all retire,
with cocoa--Yay!--
while branches sway
in crisp delight
on moonlit night.
From settling leaves
now Nature weaves
beds for flowers.
Counting the hours--
for when leaves fly,
Christmas is nigh!