Tag Archives: New Year’s Eve

Thankfulness after Thanksgiving

Have you already decorated your Christmas tree(s)?

Not me. Pumpkins, fall leaves and acorns still adorn my fireplace mantels and front door.

This decorating delay doesn’t indicate inefficiency on my part — perish the thought! It does reflect autumn’s short season. Thanksgiving items are placed on clearance before kids trick-or-treat.

Given that many hate winter, why do we forget fall so fast? Why not linger in Thanksgiving Land?

It was wild and wonderful, wasn’t it?

Even if I had to shovel out spare rooms and wash sheets.

Even if wrestling the defiant turkey into the oven resembled a Friday Night SmackDown sans tights and sparkles.

Even if appliances didn’t feel blessed. Our disposal rebelled Thanksgiving morning. Worse, our oven adopted a relativistic philosophy, insisting if its controls read “350,” the actual 500-degree temperature was irrelevant.

Even if, having stocked up on dark meat because we ran out last year, I was asked if our turkey was a mutant. Ditto for yeast rolls that resembled trolls.

Even if drains and conversations occasionally clogged.

And I can’t pretend I have six months to Christmas shop. …

Still, with four generations feasting and sharing gratitude to God, our Thanksgiving was a blessed celebration.

Admittedly, the grandchildren’s sugar energy levels could have endangered not only our house, but the entire city block. Thankfully, we all defused at a large community room I’d rented.

No one sent the Monopoly game airborne when he landed on Boardwalk with hotels.

Everyone ate mutant turkey and rolls.

Not only was there enough pie for all 17 diners, plenty remained for Grandma and Grandpa’s post-host-survival celebration.

Despite that, I still can zip my jeans! — and ignore nasty online pop-ups advertising tent-sized attire for New Year’s Eve.

Bottom line: Our family arrived safely, rejoiced, loved, and gave thanks together, then returned home, grateful to again sleep in their own beds.

Can such a rich celebration be considered a mere practice run?

We can correct whatever went wrong at Thanksgiving to improve Christmas gatherings. Hosts can repair the carbonizing oven and replace air mattresses that flattened overnight. Hubby watched a YouTube video that helped him fix the disposal. I might even practice making rolls that look like … rolls.

Image by Richard Duijnstee from Pixabay.

Soon autumn decorations in our home will give way to poinsettias, evergreens and jingle bells. A Christmas tree will grace our living room window.

But thanksgiving won’t be packed away until next November.

I pray it saturates my Christmas season … and New Year’s … and Easter 2024 … and …

Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your reasons for thanksgiving, even after Thanksgiving?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: How About an Energy Transfer?

O Lord, what a wonderful way to celebrate the New Year with these little guys, dancing to fun music, blowing squawky noise makers and bopping lighted balloons! OMG, thank You, too, that their parents counted down the “final” seconds of 2022 at 8 p.m. so the boys — and we — could go to bed.

Rachael’s Rockin’ Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Despite gloomy prognoses, there is room for optimism in 2017, especially as I’ve discovered an awesome new approach to making resolutions. This innovation effectively protects the resolver from the root-canal effect of good behavior.

My secret? I make only resolutions I can keep. Simple. Profound.

Why Albert Einstein or some other genius with funny hair hasn’t discovered this goof-proof method before, I can’t imagine.

Welcome to my easy-peasy 2017 list of resolutions:

  • I resolve to leave my save-the-earth bags in my car’s trunk when I visit Walmart. I will ignore their existence, even while stacking plastic bags of groceries on top of them. Every week.
  • During winter months, I promise to lose one glove of every pair. And a hat once a week.
  • I will continue my don’t-ask-don’t-tell relationship with the dust bunnies under my bed.
  • I resolve to try “color catcher” sheets that allow me to wash red clothes with white. I haven’t attempted such a feat since early marriage, when my brave new approach to laundry resulted in my husband’s wearing pink Fruit of the Looms throughout his medical school career.
  • When some overbearing airport suitcase hurler points to me and says, “This old bag’s too heavy to be a carry-on, charge her extra,” I promise to cut him down to size.
  • Speaking of traveling, I resolve not to smoke in airplane bathrooms. First, having never tried a cigarette, I’d probably light the wrong end. Besides, conducting the usual bathroom business requires enormous coordination in a space the size of a glove compartment. Why risk stuffing a glowing cigarette down my throat, should the plane decide to tap dance?
  • I resolve to iron one shirt this year for my husband. Or at least the front (this works if he wears a suit).
  • I resolve to kill my Christmas poinsettias before Ground Hog’s Day.
  • Finally, I resolve not to climb Mt. Everest. Or slide down.

Mission accomplished. I’ve made my list of resolutions, with no negatives to cloud 2017.

Come to think of it, my funny hair rivals Einstein’s, anytime.

How about you? What will be the first goof-proof resolution on your list?