The Holidays to Me

It is Thanksgiving 2020 and I am Home ALone! But I don't mind. Long long ago, in early childhod, I perfected the creation of personal happiness with minimal material rosources. So I am watching tv, drinking coffee, eating pmpkin bread that Holly made as a birthday gift for me. Thanksgiving, to me, was always about paricipating in a family gathering, but when my parents died, getting together lost a lot of its immediacy. We gathered together to visit our parents, my siblings and myself. Once the parents were gone, we became the parents, and our offspring had far far less motivation to visit with us, and so many of us had only one child, the draw of the siblings was also absent. Needless to say, the PANDEMIC has changed all of that anyway. It is a communal duty to STAY HOME this year and to NOT participate in the spread of this deadly disease. Some years, I visited with friends when I was alientated from y sister who lives closest to me. The trip my brother in West Virginia made to New Jersey was a big motivation for reconnectin with that sister because she would have us to her house and I would visit with my brother. But he is adamant about wanting to protect himself from this vius and has stated unequivocally that he will not be coming up for Thanksgiving or for Christmas. I often think about the hours at the kitchen table that we girls would spend chopping and peeling, dicing and chatting while my mother pulled it all together into the meal that took hours to cook and minutes to consume! I miss my mother more than any other part of it. What I don't miss is the hour in front of the sink scouring the baked on gravy out of pots and pans and the piles of dishes and cups and saucesrs after the dinner was over, when the males all retreated to the living room to watch football and the cooks and cleaners settled into phase three of the process, but at least we had one another to talk to during all of that. Christmas has NEVER been a consumer event for me mostly because I never had any money. I have always celebrated Christmas but it irritates me to hear so many of my non-celebrating friends deride it as "too commercial." I feel like saying that it is what we make of it. If you don't make it commercial then it won't be, but just as they don't want to rake leaves, they also don't want to put up trees or lights. They don't want to bother with all of that. Personally, it makes me happy though I have reiced me decorating to a fraction of my pre-old-age level. And I have help. Without the help, it would have to be reduced even further. What I love about it is the light in the time of darkness, the many stories about reemption from gloom and pessimism and selfihness into communal warmth and connection, even as my communal warth and conenction is more with other species than my own these days. My family, still around the number 7 or 8, as it was when it was human, is now multi-species: canine and feline. And they are good companions too! My dog and I just had our morning wawlk and I admired the Christmas decorations newly strung up in my neighborhood where the houses are almost entirely small, quaint bungalows that look remarkably like the little houses on our Christmas tree platform of my childhood. I was born in 1945, and my childhood is almost entirely portrayed in A Cjristmas Story, the wonderful movie based on the work of storyteller Jean Shepherd. He so perfectly encapsulated essential aspects of my childhood and youth in his stories. It is those memories also that I celebrate along with the cultural inheritance that i Christmas. My Great Northern Barbarian ancestors carried these lighted trees and symbols for hundreds of years and there is wisdom in them. I can feel it, and I commune with them each year when i also, light the tree and the the darknss for myself and my little fraction of the world. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!!

Model Train Show - Perfect for Christmas

The 18th Annual Antique Toy Train Show Nov. 27th, 2020 thru Jan. 31st, 2021 Featuring O and O-27 gauge toy trains, from the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s. Lionel, Marx and American Flyer engines, with adjoining cars, will race on two diverse platforms. Vintage Plasticville buildings from the 1950’s will further augment the display. Vegetation and auxiliary structures will give the platforms a traditional holiday appearance. Address: 138 Andaloro Way, Deptford, Nj 08093-1627 Admission $4 adults, less for children and members of roups Hours Thur., Friday, Sat., 12 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Whitesbog for my 75th Birthday

Today, November 13, 2020 was my 75th birthday. Due to the pandemic, I didn't have a party as I most certainly would have done in other years for such a mementous birthday - after all, a wuarter of a century!! And My mother die at my age as did the mothers of a few of my friends, which i a reminder that although today 75 doesn't seem all that old, it is in fact, pretty old. So since so many places were closed, my daughter and her husband came down from New York to spend the day with me. They brought me my favorite soup, which Lavinia's husband, Justin, had prpared, Butternut squash soup, and we bought take-out sandwiches and ate here, at my house. I had decorated early for Christmas so I could enjoy the decorations and lights for my birthday as well, so it was cheery and festive. Then, for dessert, we went to Eiland Arts Center in the old re-purposed Merchantville train depot, and bought coffees and treats in lieu of birthday cake since I have just recovered from a bad case of diverticulitis and none of us thought a cake sitting around the house was a good idea. We drove to Whitesbog next, and although the harvest has been over since October, it is still a hauntingly beautiful place, especially in the late afternoon on a day like this where dark bottomed clouds, reluctant to leave the battlefield where they had so recently triumphed, sat layered across a determined blue sky and a radiant sun threw light beams against the iridescent green lichen growing on the dark trunked trees and lit up the orange and red leaves of the late autumn shrubs along the wood that borders the white sand roads around the bogs. While my daughter was here, she showec me how to switch my browser from Safari to Chrome so that I could blog again, the brower turned out to be the reason I couldn't use my old blog anymore, so I am BACK!