Story of a Turkey Not Eaten
Do you remember this guy? Wow, I do!
I don’t know, can you assume there is an extra turkey or a turkey was saved just because you didn’t eat one? By the same logic there are dinosaurs and Humid Hibberty Hoppers, because I didn’t eat them either.
We decided not to have a “big” Thanksgiving this year. We finally figured out that we are adults and we can do what we want.:-O (What a concept!) And so ~ we transferred my children’s favorite holiday from Friday to Thursday and begin our season of Fauxolidays. Stick with me, it gets complicated, but it’s fun. Fauxolidays were invented by my eldest daughter who has come up with the excellent idea of Faux-mas. This is the thing: One of my daughter’s has a very significant other now, which gives us a new son, we like that part a lot. However, it also gives my daughter a new family. Last year my son -in-love spent Christmas with us in Utah, so his family expects them this year. It’s only fair.
Fair isn’t good enough, though. Both my daughters thought they would probably die from it. They have never spent a Christmas season apart. Then the eldest (who is very crafty) came up with the magnificent conclusion that we don’t have any little children in the mix, we don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, it isn’t on the date of anyone’s birth anyway (we all know that story), what is important to us is being together, so there is no reason on earth that “Christmas” can’t happen on December 27th instead of the 25th . And thus, Faux-mas was conceived. All four children have said that they intend to “ask Santa” for $$ for airplane tickets to bring the wandering children home. We will have all our traditions, and our family together, who cares what day it is?
And you see how well Thanksgiving Revisioned fits into the general Faux’ness of the holiday season.
We realized that no one particularly liked Thanksgiving, nor the way it has culturally emerged. Preparing a huge dinner is a big hassle, something always goes wrong, people get hungry and cranky, the cooks get exhausted and cranky and by the time we actually sit down everyone is tense and no one feels very thankful for anything. Then everyone eats too much rich food that we are all unused to and ends up feeling kind of icky. And no one wants the left overs since they ate too much in the first place, so the left overs end up spoiling. None of this seems a real good way to be 'thankful.'
They are telling us now that the Pilgrims (read: Puritans) didn’t really invite the Native’s to the First Thanksgiving dinner in the first place. I read that on the net so it must be true. :-) Either way, we all know what ended up happening in general between the Europeans and the Native Americans, and it wasn't all a happy feast. “Thanks-Giving” is a fantastic idea, but like much else it seems to have gotten lost, or drowned in the turkey grease.
The mad “Day After Thanksgiving” commercial crash out is really slightly nauseating all the way around, but to have it attached to “Thanksgiving” is a real nasty irony, I think. Last year I read about a shopper who ended up in the hospital because of being so severely beaten and trampled. This was because someone thought that she had tried to “cut” in front of them while the frenzied shoppers were all trying to grab CD players that were on sale. After she fell, they all trampled right over her so they could get to the ‘bargins.’ Ugh. Sounds like one of my nightmares.
{{So}} we decided to keep just a few things from Thanksgiving, combined Tree Day and the new Thanksgiving Revisioned and headed for the mountains.
It's true! It's true! With similarities they’re fraught,
Ashland, Oregon
and Cam -e-lot!
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
That all the Ashland Women are so hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
Like in Camelot.
The snow falls on the mountains in December
But down here in the valley it does not.
By order, summer lingers through September
Like in Camelot.
Ashland!
Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Ashland
and Camelot
That's how conditions are.
We often have extraordinary sundown.
In November the pearled fog will appear .
In short, there's simply nots
Two more congenial spots
For happily-ever-aftering than
Ashland
And Camelot.
Now you see? I’ve been so good for almost a month and written “Real” stuff. I haven’t ripped off with a really disgusting song or a bad poem for a long time! The upshot is we don’t have to live in the snow or drive on the snow or scrape snow off our cars, but if you want snow, it is almost always just up there waiting. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful mountain snow days I have ever seen. Alot of snow had fallen the night before and all the trees were heavy with it, the air was cold, but the sky was blue streaked with long wisps of clouds like the softest baby yarn, and the sun on the snow was ~ well, sorry about the cliché, but the sun on the snow was like diamonds. There is just no way around it.
The huge firs were holding all this heavy, wet snow making them look alternatively like Monster Marshmallows, a Christmas card , a set waiting for Wendy Froud’s puppets, a land scape painting that doesn’t look quite real because everything is too perfect and a new book by Dr. Seuss. We went very high, there were lots of house-size trees, lots of babies, and lots of the most magnificent old growth firs 100s of feet high - full of Spanish moss and snow, so tall that you almost couldn’t see the top. Literally, I couldn’t get my head back far enough. I had to lean backwards against Verlin to watch the hypnotic, lacy clouds weave among the tops of the giant trees. I had to bless them all, and incidently Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski who has fought to save our forests. (And just been reelected - thankyouthankyouthankyou.)
While Verlin and the children searched out trees, I stood for about a half hour on a ridge, all alone in the most delicious, crystal silence - looking out over a huge valley to the mountains beyond, and there was nothing to see but trees. Trees and snow and sweet, singing silence. Even all the other people who might have been out in the diamond sunshine were at home eating turkey. There were no other humans for miles and miles, you could just tell. And then I had to pray ~ please don’t let this kind of thing ever cease to exist. Please let there always be somewhere that you can stand and see nothing but trees for miles and miles. When we got home I asked Verlin exactly where we had been. He had to look it up on the map, but there were not even any names for all the peaks, he said we were on peak #36. Beautiful peak #36, Jackson County, Oregon, USA. I will name that peak sometime in the next few days.
We found the perfect tree (I don’t know how, but we always do.) We thanked it for coming to us and holding our priceless ornaments which map out our memories and create a portrait of our lives. Bringing the tree and boughs into the house is a way of connecting our existence, our daily lives with the earth and all creation. While they chopped and carried, I cut holly that will go with the ivy that I will bring in from around my house.
Now you know my protagonist is named Ivy. You see, her parents were hippies - it’s a common condition of young people in this city. So Ivy and her twin brother were born on the night of the Winter Solstice and their parents named them . . . you got it: Holen and Ivy. It gets worse. Their middle names are the Latin names of their respective plants. The character of Ivy actually began because I thought the Latin word for Ivy was so pretty. It’s Delairea. I’ve always loved the name Ivy, and the ivy is my plant. Some of you may have read a Short Story/Novelette that I wrote which also has an Ivy as the protagonist. When I saw the name I thought I would name the character Delairea, but somehow she got stuck with both of them. She is not amused at being actually named Ivy Ivy. Her brother’s name is worse, as it is Holen Ilex. Really bad. Luckily someone early on latched on to the “Holly” and started calling him Buddy. And Buddy he is. Characters. I don’t know folks, they become real and kind of take over your head.
The end of the story is that we decorated the tree, “remembering” all the ornaments. We also got out the fabric wrapping. We have a goal of wrapping all our gifts in fabric so it can be reused again and again. We’ve been getting a little every year. We got some fun Christmas fabrics last year and I’ll probably get a little more this year and that should be all we need and it should last ten or fifteen years. The fabric will probably out last me.
Following, or I guess previous (?) Are a couple of poems about Tree Day. You can also read my article about it at the Soul Food 2003 Advent Calender here:
http://www.outbackonline.net/Advent%20Calendar/Cross_Festive2.htm
I don’t know, can you assume there is an extra turkey or a turkey was saved just because you didn’t eat one? By the same logic there are dinosaurs and Humid Hibberty Hoppers, because I didn’t eat them either.
We decided not to have a “big” Thanksgiving this year. We finally figured out that we are adults and we can do what we want.:-O (What a concept!) And so ~ we transferred my children’s favorite holiday from Friday to Thursday and begin our season of Fauxolidays. Stick with me, it gets complicated, but it’s fun. Fauxolidays were invented by my eldest daughter who has come up with the excellent idea of Faux-mas. This is the thing: One of my daughter’s has a very significant other now, which gives us a new son, we like that part a lot. However, it also gives my daughter a new family. Last year my son -in-love spent Christmas with us in Utah, so his family expects them this year. It’s only fair.
Fair isn’t good enough, though. Both my daughters thought they would probably die from it. They have never spent a Christmas season apart. Then the eldest (who is very crafty) came up with the magnificent conclusion that we don’t have any little children in the mix, we don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, it isn’t on the date of anyone’s birth anyway (we all know that story), what is important to us is being together, so there is no reason on earth that “Christmas” can’t happen on December 27th instead of the 25th . And thus, Faux-mas was conceived. All four children have said that they intend to “ask Santa” for $$ for airplane tickets to bring the wandering children home. We will have all our traditions, and our family together, who cares what day it is?
And you see how well Thanksgiving Revisioned fits into the general Faux’ness of the holiday season.
We realized that no one particularly liked Thanksgiving, nor the way it has culturally emerged. Preparing a huge dinner is a big hassle, something always goes wrong, people get hungry and cranky, the cooks get exhausted and cranky and by the time we actually sit down everyone is tense and no one feels very thankful for anything. Then everyone eats too much rich food that we are all unused to and ends up feeling kind of icky. And no one wants the left overs since they ate too much in the first place, so the left overs end up spoiling. None of this seems a real good way to be 'thankful.'
They are telling us now that the Pilgrims (read: Puritans) didn’t really invite the Native’s to the First Thanksgiving dinner in the first place. I read that on the net so it must be true. :-) Either way, we all know what ended up happening in general between the Europeans and the Native Americans, and it wasn't all a happy feast. “Thanks-Giving” is a fantastic idea, but like much else it seems to have gotten lost, or drowned in the turkey grease.
The mad “Day After Thanksgiving” commercial crash out is really slightly nauseating all the way around, but to have it attached to “Thanksgiving” is a real nasty irony, I think. Last year I read about a shopper who ended up in the hospital because of being so severely beaten and trampled. This was because someone thought that she had tried to “cut” in front of them while the frenzied shoppers were all trying to grab CD players that were on sale. After she fell, they all trampled right over her so they could get to the ‘bargins.’ Ugh. Sounds like one of my nightmares.
{{So}} we decided to keep just a few things from Thanksgiving, combined Tree Day and the new Thanksgiving Revisioned and headed for the mountains.
It's true! It's true! With similarities they’re fraught,
Ashland, Oregon
and Cam -e-lot!
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
That all the Ashland Women are so hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
Like in Camelot.
The snow falls on the mountains in December
But down here in the valley it does not.
By order, summer lingers through September
Like in Camelot.
Ashland!
Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Ashland
and Camelot
That's how conditions are.
We often have extraordinary sundown.
In November the pearled fog will appear .
In short, there's simply nots
Two more congenial spots
For happily-ever-aftering than
Ashland
And Camelot.
Now you see? I’ve been so good for almost a month and written “Real” stuff. I haven’t ripped off with a really disgusting song or a bad poem for a long time! The upshot is we don’t have to live in the snow or drive on the snow or scrape snow off our cars, but if you want snow, it is almost always just up there waiting. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful mountain snow days I have ever seen. Alot of snow had fallen the night before and all the trees were heavy with it, the air was cold, but the sky was blue streaked with long wisps of clouds like the softest baby yarn, and the sun on the snow was ~ well, sorry about the cliché, but the sun on the snow was like diamonds. There is just no way around it.
The huge firs were holding all this heavy, wet snow making them look alternatively like Monster Marshmallows, a Christmas card , a set waiting for Wendy Froud’s puppets, a land scape painting that doesn’t look quite real because everything is too perfect and a new book by Dr. Seuss. We went very high, there were lots of house-size trees, lots of babies, and lots of the most magnificent old growth firs 100s of feet high - full of Spanish moss and snow, so tall that you almost couldn’t see the top. Literally, I couldn’t get my head back far enough. I had to lean backwards against Verlin to watch the hypnotic, lacy clouds weave among the tops of the giant trees. I had to bless them all, and incidently Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski who has fought to save our forests. (And just been reelected - thankyouthankyouthankyou.)
While Verlin and the children searched out trees, I stood for about a half hour on a ridge, all alone in the most delicious, crystal silence - looking out over a huge valley to the mountains beyond, and there was nothing to see but trees. Trees and snow and sweet, singing silence. Even all the other people who might have been out in the diamond sunshine were at home eating turkey. There were no other humans for miles and miles, you could just tell. And then I had to pray ~ please don’t let this kind of thing ever cease to exist. Please let there always be somewhere that you can stand and see nothing but trees for miles and miles. When we got home I asked Verlin exactly where we had been. He had to look it up on the map, but there were not even any names for all the peaks, he said we were on peak #36. Beautiful peak #36, Jackson County, Oregon, USA. I will name that peak sometime in the next few days.
We found the perfect tree (I don’t know how, but we always do.) We thanked it for coming to us and holding our priceless ornaments which map out our memories and create a portrait of our lives. Bringing the tree and boughs into the house is a way of connecting our existence, our daily lives with the earth and all creation. While they chopped and carried, I cut holly that will go with the ivy that I will bring in from around my house.
Now you know my protagonist is named Ivy. You see, her parents were hippies - it’s a common condition of young people in this city. So Ivy and her twin brother were born on the night of the Winter Solstice and their parents named them . . . you got it: Holen and Ivy. It gets worse. Their middle names are the Latin names of their respective plants. The character of Ivy actually began because I thought the Latin word for Ivy was so pretty. It’s Delairea. I’ve always loved the name Ivy, and the ivy is my plant. Some of you may have read a Short Story/Novelette that I wrote which also has an Ivy as the protagonist. When I saw the name I thought I would name the character Delairea, but somehow she got stuck with both of them. She is not amused at being actually named Ivy Ivy. Her brother’s name is worse, as it is Holen Ilex. Really bad. Luckily someone early on latched on to the “Holly” and started calling him Buddy. And Buddy he is. Characters. I don’t know folks, they become real and kind of take over your head.
The end of the story is that we decorated the tree, “remembering” all the ornaments. We also got out the fabric wrapping. We have a goal of wrapping all our gifts in fabric so it can be reused again and again. We’ve been getting a little every year. We got some fun Christmas fabrics last year and I’ll probably get a little more this year and that should be all we need and it should last ten or fifteen years. The fabric will probably out last me.
Following, or I guess previous (?) Are a couple of poems about Tree Day. You can also read my article about it at the Soul Food 2003 Advent Calender here:
http://www.outbackonline.net/Advent%20Calendar/Cross_Festive2.htm
posted by Unknown | 11:29 PM
2 Comments:
Oh, Winnie m'dear, what a delightful piece. It transported me as if by magic carpet to my beloved Oregon and to the last time I stood in the cool, green, magical forest. Thank you-thank you-thankyou.
Hugs, Vi
Thank you Vi and Clair! My Forest is a magical place.
I don't know about your sims characters Clair. It will be interesting to compare when we are done hu?
I just decided to make the end of this comment into a post! See it there!
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