George Washington’s Birthday

According to some of the calendars and appointment books floating around this office, Monday, February 19th, is Presidents’ Day. Others say it’s President’s Day. Still others opt for Presidents Day. Which is it? The bouncing apostrophe bespeaks a certain uncertainty. President’s Day suggests that only one holder of the nation’s supreme magistracy is being commemorated—presumably the first. Presidents’ Day hints at more than one, most likely the Sage of Mount Vernon plus Abraham Lincoln, generally agreed to be the greatest of them all. And Presidents Day, apostropheless, implies a promiscuous celebration of all forty-two—Jefferson but also Pierce, F.D.R. but also Buchanan, Truman but also Harding. To say nothing of the incumbent, of whom, perhaps, the less said the better.

So which is it? Trick question. The answer, strictly speaking, is none of the above. Ever since 1968, when, in one of the last gasps of Great Society reformism, holidays were rejiggered to create more three-day weekends, federal law has decreed the third Monday in February to be Washington’s Birthday. And Presidents’/’s/s Day? According to Prologue, the magazine of the National Archives, it was a local department-store promotion that went national when retailers discovered that, mysteriously, generic Presidents clear more inventory than particular ones, even the Father of His Country. Now everybody thinks it’s official, but it’s not. (Note to Fox News: could be a War on Washington’s Birthday angle here, similar to the War on Christmas. Over to you, Bill.)

Hendrik Hertzberg

He has more.

Groundhog Day

If that fat bastard rodent comes out and sees his shadow I suggest we all shoot the son-of-a-groundhog. No more winter!

Groundhog.org - the Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club

Update: Phil did not see his shadow (NewMexiKen scared him). Spring is on the way!

Chuckle chuckle

Martin Luther King Jr.

… was born on this date in 1929.

Many may question some of King’s choices and perhaps even some of his motives, but no one can question his unparalleled leadership in a great cause, or his abilities with both the spoken and written word.

There are 10 federal holidays, but only four of them are dedicated to one man: one for Jesus, one for the man given credit for discovering our continent, one for the military and political founder George Washington, and one for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Happy New Year

The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

Herman Hupfield

Best wishes to you all in 2007.

Merry Christmas

Tis the season to be greedy, fa la la la la.

So a NewMexiKen poll.

Feel free to elaborate in the comments.

And God bless us, every one!

The Gift of the Magi

By O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), 1906.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two
at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and
the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent
imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

Read the rest of this entry.

It’s better to give

Christmas shopping in the U.S. has been a reliable source of anxiety and stress for well over a century. “As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the great question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape it has come to assume in recent years,” the New York Tribune wrote in 1894. But recently millions of Americans, instead of trudging through malls in a desperate quest for the perfect sweater, have switched to buying gift cards. The National Retail Federation expects that Americans will buy close to twenty-five billion dollars’ worth of gift cards this season, up thirty-four per cent from last year, with two-thirds of shoppers intending to buy at least one card; gift cards now rival apparel as the most popular category of present. This is, in part, because of clever corporate marketing: stores like gift cards because they amount to an interest-free loan from customers, and because recipients usually spend more than the amount on the card—a phenomenon that retailers tenderly refer to as “uplifting” spending. But the boom in gift cards is also a rational response to the most important economic fact about Christmas gift giving: most of us just aren’t that good at it.

James Surowiecki in an interesting little essay on gifting. There’s more including this key point: “My idea of what you want, it turns out, has a lot to do with what I want.”

A Christmas Carol

… was first published on this date in 1843.

Scrooge. a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

Ho Ho Ho

Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, writes about one of the Christmas season’s most cherished traditions — taking the little one to see Santa.

We were at the mall early to do some Christmas shopping yesterday when we saw a mom and her two young kids standing outside the door to Santa’s workshop. We asked her what the deal was, and she pointed to the sign about the extra holiday hours. We were in luck. It was 9:45, and Santa was going to be there at 10am. So, we got in line.

Sofie was excited and remarkably well-behaved. At 10, the line had grown behind us, but there was still no sign of Santa. At about 10:15, the kids started whining. At about 10:30, the parents started to wonder if maybe Santa had had a few too many the night before. At about 10:45, someone in line reported seeing “an old guy with a beard” in the parking lot heading toward the Santa house, but he wasn’t in costume yet. Finally, at 11, the doors to Santa’s workshop opened. A pissed-off elf informed us that “corporate” didn’t tell them about the early holiday hours. By this point, the mom in front of us had left, dragging her disappointed and crying kids through the mall - they’d apparently “lost” Santa privileges because they were misbehaving.

Sofie was first in line. She goes in and won’t even look at Santa. Not for a second. Santa was more than happy, however, to have mom sit next to him. Um, gross. So the picture…(which cost us about $700 give or take a few bucks) pretty much sums up our perfect Santa experience:

(1) A long wait in line
(2) Screaming kids
(3) Problems at “corporate”
(4) Our own kid didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap (or look at him or talk to him)
(5) A lecherous Santa
(6) Ridiculously overpriced photos of the experience

Best line of the day, so far

When I was a child, I tell my offspring, my brother and I often would receive just one present at Christmastime, typically an individual crayon. It wouldn’t even be a full crayon, but merely a stub. Still, we’d be grateful and would pretend that “brown” was our favorite of the 64 Crayola colors. We would talk about how great this crayon would be if only we could afford paper.

Joel Achenbach

[First posted here a year ago.]

The four stages of life

1. You believe in Santa
2. You don’t believe in Santa
3. You are Santa
4. You look like Santa

Too Much of Too Much

It’s time to bundle up all the kids, put some Christmas music on, and make our annual pilgrimage through the neighborhood of Ugly Christmas Lights.

There’s a sample on the right. You know what to do, click to enlarge.

But you really need to make the trip.

Enjoy

New Orleans Jazz — “O Holy Night”. This is a link to the video from Studio 60 that was posted here Saturday evening.

Silent Night

NewMexiKen has still gotta go with Stevie Nicks for a hot version of “Silent Night,”, but Sarah McLachlan’s Silent Night is very nice.

Better yet, it’s free from iTunes while supplies last.

Two Christmases

Atrios (Duncan Black) offers a point of view. What do you think?

Look, it’s very simple. There are two Christmas holidays. One is the secular holiday, decreed by the federal government to be a national holiday, which is celebrated and marked with festive displays of trees, lights, fat guys with beards, and elves, along with lots of shopping and the giving of gifts. The other holiday involves a celebration of the birth of the Messiah, and is celebrated with religious rituals and displays of nativity scenes and other religious imagery.

Public displays of secular Christmas imagery? fine.

Public displays of religious Christmas imagery? less fine.

Christmas trees in airports? fine.
Baby Jesus scenes in airports? less fine.

The White House Has Way Too Much Time on Its Hands

“Barney’s Holiday Extravaganza”. Note video links in right-hand column.

Also available free at iTunes.

The Gift of the Magi

NewMexiKen usually posts The Gift of the Magi just before Christmas and I will again this year, too. But, just follow the link if you find your spirit lagging.

Figs

So bring us some figgy pudding

That’s a line from “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” I know, I just heard it.

My question is, when was the last time you had a fig, let alone any figgy pudding?

The War on Christmas: An Exit Strategy

Let’s face it: Christmas is not the exclusive property of those who think God came to earth 2000 years ago as a baby in Bethlehem. I caught the Christmas bug from my parents, who were militant atheists of the Richard Dawkins ilk. I celebrated it with my first husband, the son of Jewish atheists. True, we tried Chanukah too one year, but it bombed with the kids. What’s a little Chanukah gelt compared to a floor-full of presents? My second husband, who had been inadvertently converted to atheism by the nuns at Catholic school, was the worst. We fought over whether to measure the extent of our excess by the volume of presents under the tree or their weight as determined by the bathroom scale.

Barbara Ehrenreich, who has more.

Jingle All the Way

iTunes is giving away James Taylor’s very stylized version of Jingle Bells this week.

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out

NewMexiKen had his annual viewing of A Christmas Story this evening. It’s the best of all the seasonal films.

Ups and Downs

The coffee looks like I messed up the math — I mean it is seriously strong coffee. Typing may become a little jittery soon.

Went to Kohl’s last night (it’s a department store chain). All their Christmas decorations and related items were marked down 50-55%. Not only does the Christmas season seem to come earlier every year, now the Day After Christmas sales are coming earlier, too. If stuff is half-price now, what will it be December 26th?

I bought a cool Christmas stocking holder. It’s St. Nick with a long trailing list of naughty and nice kids to serve as the hook for the stocking. Half-price.

There are holiday lights up all over the neighborhood, of course. And, as always, there are some idiots leaving them on all night. Get a timer guys; how hard can it be? We are expected to turn our porch lights off in this neighborhood at 10PM (unless we need them, of course.) We get to see the stars that way.

The chicken club tacos at Chili’s are pretty good.

Last week I saw a young woman I’ve known for several years. She was carrying a small dog. Apparently this Jack Russell went with her everywhere. Inseparable.

I learned last night that she had broken up with the guy who gave her the dog. And he took the dog back! I suppose the only good side to that story is that his taking back the dog confirmed the rightness of the breaking up.

NewMexiKen did spend a lot of time yesterday redoing some of the underlying code for this site. You may notice I’ve added an Astronomy Picture of the Day thumbnail and link, and an Albuquerque weather sticker. (Right sidebar.) I failed at getting either Picasa Web Albums or Flickr to work — that is, to load thumbnails from them to this page. Anyone know the secret?

Don’t forget to send Cat a postcard.

And this, your most important assignment today, go read Bill Moyer’s talk at West Point. Allow time to recover.

The Pilgrims

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

From the only contemporary account of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, a letter by Edward Winslow dated December 11, 1621.

And for all the talk about other Thanksgivings — and they surely do deserve recognition — and how the traditions we have now have very little to do with the actual Pilgrims, let’s give them — and the Wampanoags — some credit.

Dora the Explorer

Nothing is more commercial than the modern Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — more of a variety show that walks than a parade.

But still, it’s the big time, and here’s Dora. Where’s Boots?

Worst Travel Day of the Year

(CBS/AP) RAMSEY, N.J. Some wild turkeys, it appears, were trying to get out of New Jersey before Thanksgiving.

NJ Transit officials reported seeing a dozen or so wild turkeys waiting on a Ramsey train station platform Wednesday. The line continues to Mahwah and Suffern, N.Y.

Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit, said the sighting wasn’t a joke.

“For a moment, it looked like the turkeys were waiting for the next outbound train,” he said “Clearly, they’re trying to catch a train and escape their fate.”

wcbstv.com

I Think I’ll Have Dinner at Alice’s Today

Thanksgiving Day brings us a rare moment of coming together. A tradition that crosses boundaries. No, it’s not eating supper with family or even watching football. For radio fans and programmers alike, today’s holiday is best celebrated by the playing of one song, Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.” That song, which was originally released as the 18-minute “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” will be heard today ….

The song, which is usually broadcast in either the original album track form or the even longer 30th anniversary live version, relates a Thanksgiving story. In it, Guthrie talks about enjoying a Thanksgiving feast with friends in Stockbridge at the title restaurant. After that, things get weird. The singer relates taking out the trash and, having no place to legally drop it because of the holiday, dumping it illegally. This leads to a long, shaggy-dog tale of being arrested for littering that turns into both an anti-Vietnam War protest and a statement of human rights. Somehow, by the end, he has turned the song into a statement that in union there is strength. And the best way to demonstrate that communal strength? Everyone, as listeners know, must sing along with the familiar refrain: “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” As the singer points out, if we can pull ourselves together to do that, we can change the world.

The Boston Globe

Downloadable versions from the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree Concert / Radio Show.

Alice Brock — the actual Alice.

The First Thanksgiving

On April 30th four centuries ago, our ancestors, led by Don Juan de Oñate, reached the banks of El Rio Bravo (Rio Grande). The first recorded act of thanksgiving by colonizing Europeans on this continent occurred on that April day in 1598 in Nuevo Mexico, about 25 miles south of what is now El Paso, Texas. After having begun their northward trek in March of that same year, the entire caravan was gathered at this point. The 400 person expedition included soldiers, families, servants, personal belongings, and livestock . . . virtually a living village. Two thirds of the colonizers were from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands). There was even one Greek and a man from Flanders! The rest were Mexican Indians and mestizos (mixed bloods).

The starting point for the colonists had been in Zacatecas, Nueva España (now Mexico) and by being part of the colonizing expedition they had been promised the title of Hidalgo, men with rights and privileges equal to Spain’s nobility. Juan de Oñate was a man of wealth and prominence, the son of Cristobal Oñate, silver mine owner whose family had come to the New World from the Basque region of Spain. Titles granted to him by Viceroy Luis de Velasco were Governor and Adelantado of New Mexico. The colonists suffered hardships and deprivations as they headed north, but they were also headed toward posterity: they would participate in the first recorded act of Thanksgiving by colonizing Europeans on this continent—22 years before the English colonists similarly gave thanks on the Atlantic coast. The expedition is well recorded by Gaspar Perez de Villagrá, the Spanish poet who traveled with the group. He wrote, “We were sadly lacking in all knowledge of the stars, the winds, and other knowledge by which to guide our steps.”

On April 30, 1598, the scouts made camp along the Rio Grande and prepared to drink and eat their fill, for there they found fishes and waterfowl. Villagrá wrote,

We built a great bonfire and roasted meat and fish, and then sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before.” Before this bountiful meal, Don Juan de Oñate personally nailed a cross to a living tree and prayed, “Open the door to these heathens, establish the church altars where the body and blood of the Son of God may be offered, open to us the way to security and peace for their preservation and ours, and give to our king and to me in his royal name, peaceful possession of these kingdoms and provinces for His blessed glory. Amen.”

Excerpted from The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Thanks to Hullaballo for the link.

Thanksgiving, As Best We Know

Conclusion from a thoughtful and thorough article in The Christian Science Monitor (November 27, 2002).

There are many myths surrounding Thanksgiving. Here are nine things we do know are true about the holiday.

1. The first Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration in 1621 that lasted for three days.

2. The feast most likely occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11.

3. Approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 colonists - the latter mostly women and children - participated.

4. The Wampanoag, led by Chief Massasoit, contributed at least five deer to the feast.

5. Cranberry sauce, potatoes - white or sweet - and pies were not on the menu.

6. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag communicated through Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, who knew English because he had associated with earlier explorers. [In fact, Squanto (or Tisquantum), had spent several years in Europe and England.]

7. Besides meals, the event included recreation and entertainment.

8. There are only two surviving descriptions of the first Thanksgiving. One is in a letter by colonist Edward Winslow. He mentions some of the food and activities. The second description was in a book written by William Bradford 20 years afterward. His account was lost for almost 100 years.

9. Abraham Lincoln named Thanksgiving an annual holiday in 1863.

And this, The Year We Had Two Thanksgivings.

Thanksgiving, Then and Now

Click image to see larger version.

More covers.