Various Holiday Weekend Happenings

The day before Thanksgiving a guy I’ve never met took a close look at Ginny’s breasts.

Last month she went in for her annual mammogram which revealed two worrisome anomalies. They called her back in for a second x-ray and a sonogram to look at the spots closer. Wednesday the radiologist examined her thoroughly and decided that both suspicious areas were benign.

Can’t top that as something to be thankful for!

We had decided not to mention the situation before till we knew exactly what we might be facing, so the radiologist’s news provided us with a great relief.

I find that I am not naturally a thankful person.

When good things happen to me, I tend to feel that they are my due. When bad things happen, I tend to feel that God has it in for me.

Neither stance lends itself to a thankful heart.

I fit in with that group of people of whom the Scripture says, “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful…”

Not a good position to be in.

A thankful heart requires conscious awareness and effort; we don’t just drift into it. Thankful hearts begin with an awareness of good’s Source.

The Apostle James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth…”

Until that mind set becomes a part of us, and I loose sight of it all the time, we remain ungrateful slobs blundering through life feeling as though we deserved nothing but good and feeling slighted any time our will is thwarted in any little thing.

Thursday the whole family gathered at Donald and Helen’s home for the feast.

What a riot!

Helen roasted a turkey and baked a tasty corn casserole. Ginny mixed her famous dressing (the pigs ate every smidgen leaving me none to bring home). Patricia, our token vegetarian, ate plenty of imitation straw made of soy meal. Jennifer boiled huge pink shrimp on a bed of greens. Eve boiled bananas and shredded coconuts in whiskey as a topping for pound cake. I baked an apple pie but only two people tried a slice and I had to bring it home and eat the rest myself while watching football.

After the feast we gathered in the backyard to write our Christmas gift wish lists. This family Thanksgiving tradition admits no limit. Anything you might possibly ever want can go on your list, and when each person reads their list aloud around the family circle, unmerciful teasing ensues.

We laughed till we choked and all the red faces were not from a holiday fire’s glow.

Of course I urged everyone to buy nothing but copies of my books as Christmas gifts — What could be more suitable than a copy of Gravedigger’s Christmas? — but they listed silly things like Peace On Earth, a moose head lamp, donations to charity, and other impractical stuff like that. No body in my own family wants to buy my books!

I’m stuffing stockings with lumps of coal this year.

See if I don’t!

Ginny and I seldom exchange gifts — all we want is eachother — but if we do, it’s something simple. For instance, for our anniversary last week, I gave her some cotton boles I picked and a large snail shell I found on the lake. She arranged these with a pine cone she found to make us a 39th Anniversary Tree:

But we try to ensure that each person gets at least one thing on their list. We spend money we can’t afford buying things that no one on earth needs — just for the pure fun of it.

Therefore, on Friday, Ginny and I joined at least four or five other shoppers in the stores for the After-Thanksgiving Sales.

Any reputable psychiatrist would certify us both for such behavior.

Now for years and years we often have shopped at Big Lots. So Friday we went there again. But….

But, when I went to get a shopping cart, I found them locked. Each cart now has a meter and you have to pay a quarter to use one in Big Lots.

Fat chance. This is not an airport.

Ginny and I walked a dozen steps to two other stores in the strip mall and spent $60.47 on trinkets we intended to buy at Big Lots. In trying to gouge customers out of an extra quarter for a previously-free shopping cart to shop in their store, they screwed themselves out of our $60.47.

As far as I’m concerned, from now on the cheapskates at Big Lots can enjoy their empty shopping carts and cash registers.

Have you ever noticed that for a Christian, I can be a bitter little person?

Saturday we received a queer birthday letter (not our birthday) requesting a response but we have no idea how to respond. We’re puzzling over this one.

Saturday night, Ginny and I braved the cold 60 degree weather to attend the 23^rd Annual Jacksonville Christmas Boat Parade — the link is to some photos I took of the celebration.

What a blast!

Police estimate that over 200,000 people watched more than 70 boats decorated with Christmas lights parade between two downtown bridges.

Only in Florida will you see a woman watching the Christmas Parade on the river with a mink coat on her shoulders and flip flops ion her feet.

Be sure to check out my photo link, the boats do not show up well in the thumbnails but look ok when you click on the full-sized shot.

Following the parade, fireworks erupted from both bridges and from two barges anchored mid-channel in the St Johns. Reflections from the water and from downtown office building windows triple the lightshow in the sky.

To conclude the program, fireworks cascade from the bridge decks into the St Johns. Because of the crowd and our location all my photos have only one bridge, the Acosta, in the background:

Of course, Jacksonville firefighters supervised the display and our fireboats patrolled the river … which reminds me that I need to get to work again tomorrow writing that history of the Jacksonville Fire Department….

No way am I going to finish that book before Christmas.