Sunday, November 29, 2020

THANKS -- DANCIN' -- CHILDREN'S CHALLENGE

Thanksgiving has passed -- another day home alone for many of us, but I have much for which I give thanks.    I enjoyed a delicious traditional turkey dinner delivered a couple days earlier that required my only re-heating the food in my microwave oven.  I ordered small quantities of turkey, dressing, gravy, yams with pineapple, various vegetables, cranberries and two pieces of my favorite pumpkin pie.  

I intentionally wanted to have leftovers from this nearby family-owned deli.   I was glad they had  decided to keep  their deli open after having to close their long-time independent grocery a few years ago.  They always featured quality meat and fresh seasonal locally produced fruits and vegetables but couldn't survive the competition from newly opened Sprouts and Trader Joe's just a few blocks down Route 66 from their city location.  Farmer's markets are the sole source of such produce now.  Wolfe's deli has thrived and I've occasionally purchased select items there before but only a full dinner once before.    I think I will order meals for Christmas, later New Year's Day, some different food items from their varied menu offerings since everything was so tasty.  

FaceTime calls with my children and grandchildren interspersed with videos of them preparing  food highlighted my day.  Other times internet videos of their playing games and crazy antics came across the miles as they enjoyed time together in pleasantly warm outdoor weather.  They took care to maintain distance from each other, wore masks.  I felt almost as if I was there in person for a long overdue family gathering -- maybe another time after this coronavirus is relegated to history.  

Then, to bring me even more pleasure one of my PBS stations aired the most entertaining, exciting, colorful, energy-filled showing of the 1981 Tony award-winning Broadway musical "42nd Street" filmed at London's Drury Theatre.  The next day this spectacular tap dancing production aired an encore for me to view once more to my great delight.  The show apparently is only available in SoCal streaming on PBS Passport as part of their membership benefits but was aired specially for all this holiday.  There are numerous YouTube video excerpts and here are a few for any tap aficionados like me.


Here's another excerpt.....


A final excerpt.....


Our city's restaurants are expected to contest, possibly even violate, despite $$$ fines, the recent admonition they've been given to reduce even further to 20% occupancy outdoor customer seating capacity continuing with daily closing hours recently set at 10 p.m.  Owners believe these new requirements shouldn't apply to our town since Covid19 infection percentages are below the overall level of our County, Los Angeles, that dictated the criteria specified to have necessitated this change.

However, the total numbers of people with the coronavirus in our county have increased in alarming numbers.  We haven't even seen what may occur in a couple weeks following this holiday, since many people travelled rather than staying at home as recommended.  Small businesses income in our town has been severely impacted.  Local Claremont Colleges (5 undergraduate, 2 graduate) have been offering virtual classes only, so most students are not presently living on campus or in our city to patronize them either.

Pity the children told Santa's coming but are having to wait for what must seem like an eternity, since advertisers started talking about Christmas in October this year, the earliest ever, I think. When I was a child Christmas wasn't promoted until after Thanksgiving.  Those weeks until Christmas seemed to me to last forever, but the time has been much longer now for little ones to have to wait since advertising and promotion started even before Halloween this year.

Ordinarily I would rail about this commercialization starting so early, but it may make sense this year given the pandemic.  Predictions have been there would be so much shipping of items as to overload our system so we should start early.  So kiddies ..... delayed satisfaction has likely stressed the patience of all adults in our culture even more, since so many expect instant gratification under the most ordinary circumstances.  

Our little ones may not understand at all and will just have to accept this seemingly never-ending wait for Santa in their world.   I appreciate the adults have wanted something to feel happy about so decided to rush Christmas.  Maybe it's just a matter of how all is presented to the wee ones.  My children adjusted to what they thought were lucky neighbor friends celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah.   Now, more outdoor lights and decorations are going up in my neighborhood which all ages can enjoy, though some elsewhere started decorating before Thanksgiving -- but maybe avoiding mentioning Santa until after Thanksgiving is a good idea any year.  

I hope all are having a pleasant long Thanksgiving weekend.  No doubt, you too, are making whatever preparations may be needed for our next upcoming holidays.  I don't think I'll write a holiday letter again this year to mail.  I have only a few greeting cards to address as the number of family and friends still living has continued to dwindle, so will likely restrict myself to just the personal messages I ordinarily write.   I don't expect to mail packages and will instead have items shipped directly to recipients from wherever I purchase them, or maybe I'll just send a check for them to select what they want.

How was your Thanksgiving?   

Are you making plans now for Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's, other holidays?  

What do you remember about the wait for Christmas or other seasonal holidays when you were young?

26 comments:

  1. The big ticket festival for us was and is Deepavali and when young, we would start dreaming of all the goodies that we would get as presents as well as the goodies that we would get to eat. Most important however was to dream about all the fireworks that we would set off during the few days of the festival.

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    1. Sounds like exciting times for all to anticipate.

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  2. Just the two of us for Thanksgiving and hoping my daughter who decided to eat with another family will stay safe and healthy Slowly trying to wrap my mind around Christmas...so much to do. Glad you meal was delicious and great that you shopped the small business store.

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    1. Glad the two of you could share the holiday at home together and hope your daughter does remain safe.

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  3. That meal you had delivered sounded just right. Wish we had such a service here. Thanksgiving this year was via phone but that was not bad for all my family behaved and kept the celebrations to just the household. For them, the price was just too high to pay for one day of togetherness.

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    1. Phone cals are great and what we used for years to stay in touch and still do frequently. Sounds like your family wisely took care to minimize risking encountering the virus.

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  4. As children, we each always made a Christmas calendar. We decorated it the way we wanted, and then we could cross off the days until the holiday ourselves. It was one tradition we always looked forward to.

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    1. The calendar sounds like a novel idea that would help keep the time frame in perspective.

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  5. Smart, getting a meal that was "me-sized", Joared. We did nearly the same. I bought a large, Marie Calendar's frozen turkey dinner, made green bean casserole (a first, for me), and baked a pumpkin/walnut pie and a chocolate/pecan pie. The only thing left over was pie!

    Our granddaughter (RN) was still in quarantine for possible exposure, so I'm not sure what she and her family did (if anything).

    We're pretty much ignoring Christmas, this year. As an atheist, I'd prefer to do that every year.

    My memories of Christmas is that we bought/decorated a tree in mid-December and did our shopping on Christmas Eve.

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  6. Oh, your pies and dinner sound good. I miss our Marie Calendar’s since not only was it among those they permanently closed, the structure was leveled into just a vacant lot shattering my hope they might reopen one day. The first Thanksgiving I was a widow i declined friends dinner invitations to instead go to nearby MC since I thought I might as well discover what life would be like now that I was alone. I wrote a blog piece about my experience then as it unexpectedly became a bit unusual.

    I think many celebrate Christmas as a holiday with Santa lore as separate and apart from the religious significance. The season is celebrated as a time to especially focus on peace and good will toward all mankind.

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    1. As Tom Lehrer sange:

      On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
      Your fellow man you must adore,
      There's time to rob him all the more
      The other Three hundred and sixty-four.

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    2. Thats funny, but true. True also of all the holidays that are commercialized more and more with each succeeding year i.e. greeting cards that never had them before, along with additional products increasingly miraculously associated with them.

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  7. Christmas for us will be much the same this year, as it's just the two of us in NI and our families tend to stay in England for Christmas. We haven't had a big family Christmas for many years. Here too plenty of decorations in people's houses - Christmas trees, strings of lights, wee Santa figures, Christmas wreaths etc. But I wonder if the relaxing of restrictions over Christmas will lead to a rising infection rate in the new year.

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    1. I, too, wonder if after each holiday there will be increases in viral infection rates.

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  8. Just wonderful videos. I was singing and tapping right along all with a grin on my face. Thank you. Thanksgiving dinner was cottage cheese on a half an avocado with a dollop of mayo. :)

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the tappers. I thought this show was particularly upbeat and wish I could have seen it in person. Expect you'll soon enjoy biting into more foods.

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  9. Xmas used to be a wonderful time when my daughter was small and there was a big family do at my in laws house in Dublin. It always involved calling to all the homes along the street and having the house full of visitors, incl. the neighbours' guests home from overseas etc.
    Totally unheard of in Germany where xmas is all hush hush family only.

    No, we don't do xmas but may go for a long hike with a packed lunch if the weather is good.

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    1. Interesting cultural differences in the country celebrations. A long hike and lunch sounds good so hope your weather is, too.

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  10. We bought our first artificial Christmas tree and I am enjoying it. Not the same but then what is the same?

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    1. I remember when we changed from a real tree to an artificial one -- something we had said we'd never do. Yes, times change.

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  11. We celebrate Solstice now, the Coming of the Light and exchange books which is wonderful. Wrapped in tea towels and little notes. We keep it so simple. And joyful. No mad running around like we used to do - not that that would apply this year!!

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Oh, that's interesting. I like exchanging books and the tea towel little notes idea.

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  12. Looks like we had similar Thanksgivings and will have a similar holiday season. We are mostly ordering online and having things sent to the recipient. We're even doing online gift cards for some people.

    Our Christmas in our small plantation town didn't have a lot of gifts since we only exchanged gifts with one aunt's family. I remember Santa going down our mini Main Street and throwing candy at all the children. It was a happy time and though it was celebrated with much much fewer gifts than our own children enjoyed, it was still wonderful.

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    1. Treasured memories from our childhoods. Like you, gifts were fewer and probably less expensive, not a lot of technology or electronic gadgets as we have today.

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  13. For many years Americans have railed about the commercialization of the holidays for example, stores open on Thanksgiving. Well, this year they are getting their wish. A Little House on the Prairie holiday.

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    1. Does seem very much just like those times, doesn't it. Thanks for stopping by and your comment.

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