Tag Archives: holiday inn

I’ve Got Plenty to be Thankful For

“My needs are small, I buy them all at the 5 & 10-cent store.  I’ve got plenty to be thankful for!”

Bing Crosby sings those words in Holiday Inn, 1942

bing sings

The video wasn’t embeddable, but fun scene.  Watch it! CLICK ABOVE.

A November Space

It’s November.  I don’t know exactly why I tend to so expressly observe times and seasons and months like I do.  I just need to understand the time I am in…what is it for?

They taught us that in elementary school: in September it is yellow school busses and rain galoshes and sharpened yellow pencils and cursive handwriting practice.  Then came the jack-o-lanterns of October, coloring spooky houses and friendly ghosts on math worksheets.

“Over the river and through the wood to grandmother’s house we go,” got trotted out each November in music class.  I couldn’t have dreamed I’d ever be a grandmother and to this day I trace my grandchildren’s hands and make “turkeys” just the way I learned to do it in Kindergarten a hundred years ago.  November was thankfulness and cornucopias and the browns and oranges and deep golds of crispy leaves blowing along the curb while we walked to school.

I like to mark the times, the days, the seasons and this IS a month for gratefulness.  So many things should be marked with an official “thank-you,” and sometimes in the hurried months we forget.  So November comes and reminds me.  That is what this time is for.

O God, you have been good.  You have been faithful to all generations.

fallen leaves anne of windy poplar

It’s November.

It’s topaz and crisp mornings and where did all these falling leaves come from?  It’s pumpkin-everything and Thanksgiving time and ok to start watching Christmas movies now.  It’s All-Saints-Day (count me in!) and sweaters and scarves and good friends and coffee and building altars of remembrance.  It’s a good time to rest and enjoy from the abundance of the storehouses the blessings of God on the year.

It’s taking a deep breath and leaving a space for quietness and reflection.  It’s leaving a space to live today, in this moment and not already stressed about the holidays and the crazed shopping and every possible thing that must be completed before the year comes to an end.  You know that will just take all your joy, don’t you?  It’s November – leave some space, just wait a bit…

The earth sinks to rest until next spring…

“November comes

And November goes,

With the last red berries

And the first white snows.

With night coming early,

And dawn coming late,

And ice in the bucket

And frost by the gate.

The fires burn

And the kettles sing,

And earth sinks to rest

Until next spring.” – Clyde Watson

Be careful, my sweets, not to rush into 2014 – not to begin making lofty plans or elevated goals for next year.  This one isn’t over yet.  November serves a purpose.  It is not a month without noble intendment.  There are things that need to rest until spring.  Let them rest…

Happy November, one and all.  Be sure to leave some space in your November…and be filled with thanksgiving.  This is the time for it.

Mr. Christmas

I love my Dave.  And he loves Christmas. 

For 28 Christmases now, he has worked hard, planned, created, wrapped, shopped, baked, played, decorated and done whatever else is necessary to create a magical, love-filled, memory-made Christmas for our family.  Christmas mornings at our house are legendary feasts of extravagant indulgence and convivial love banquets of gifts and good smells and laughter and mountains of giftwrap and the music of Christmas and the love of the most incredible husband-father-grandfather.  It isn’t about the money spent, for often there has been precious-little of that, but it’s the thoughtful generosity of spirit, gifts that remind the recipient: you are loved, cherished and appreciated-this is my token of that.  But – wrap all of that in a huge Christmas bow and you have the gift of the season that my husband puts much great effort in to.

You are the original Clark Griswold, honey.  You are George Bailey and Father O’Malley ringing the bells of Christmas.  You are my handsome Jefferson Jones, my lover by tree-light.  You are Kris Kringle and Santa Claus.  You are the man described in “Holiday Inn” in the exchange between Jim Hardy and Miss Linda Mason (Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds).

Linda:  You’re a lot like my father – just a man with a family.  Never amounted to much, never really cared.  But as long as he was alive, we had food to eat and clothes to keep us warm.

Jim:  Were you happy?

Linda:  Very.

Jim:  Well, then your father was a successful man.  I hope I can do as well.

Yes, baby, you are Mr. Christmas.  I love that you are.  I love that you are ever-committed to making merry for all.  I am smiling at how excited you are to be organizing the decorations – getting ready to haul them out in mere days.  You know where everything is and you’re planning, with a twinkle in your eye, to give us yet another wonderful Christmas.

As the Carpenters once sang: Merry Christmas, Darling…Jeanie

From Dickens’ A Christmas Carol~

“…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that truly be said of us, all of us!  And so, as Tiny Tim observed, ‘God bless us, Every One!'”

NOTE TO SELF: Love the Christmas keeper.

characters above from some of our favorite Christmas movies, including: Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bells of Saint Mary’s, Christmas in Connecticut, Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn

pictured: sweet daughter, Stormie did the graphic for me, from a photo of Dave and a Bing Crosby album.