"There are planty [sic] of ways to recycle Christmas trees."
One way we did it in Florida when I was growing up was to tie a concrete block to it and dump it in the lake with the other old Christmas trees, it made a great habitat for speckled perch (Black Crappie). No better-tasting panfish exists on this planet.
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Over the Hills and Everywhere.
A story of Manly Wade Wellman's mountain troubadour Silver John. Merry Christmas, all.
A story of Manly Wade Wellman's mountain troubadour Silver John. Merry Christmas, all.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
If You're Alone...
...this Christmas Eve - - maybe having to work - - and you have the time, and you're of a religious bent, you might consider saying the Liturgy of the Hours sometime after midnight tonight. In Roman Catholic monasteries and convents, it is said/sung by the monks and nuns as part of their daily routine. Since I'm generally at work most Christmases, I've made a practice of saying it the last few years. I don't claim any great faith or profess to be any sort of saint, but it comforts me to do this once a year, sort of a clutching at the hem of grace.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
A Miracle...
O Lord open thou my lips
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
O God come to my assistance;
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.
Unto us a Christ is born, O come let us worship Him...
(the start of the Roman Catholic rite of Matins, sung traditionally at Midnight by those in religious orders).
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
O God come to my assistance;
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.
Unto us a Christ is born, O come let us worship Him...
(the start of the Roman Catholic rite of Matins, sung traditionally at Midnight by those in religious orders).
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Um...Pardon My Asking This, But...
...doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose of using GPS trackers if you advertise to the thieves that you're doing it?
Snatching baby Jesus at Christmas time.
Snatching baby Jesus at Christmas time.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Walter Russell Mead's "Yule Blog"
He's been doing one daily for the 12 days of Christmas, from Christmas to Epiphany.
Here's today's: Personal Meaning.
Virtually all human beings encounter something in life that seems to transcend ordinary experience. This is true whether or not we believe in one God, many gods or no god at all. Almost all human beings have ‘peak experiences’ from time to time. There are moments and relationships in life that point beyond the physical realities toward the meaning of life. Painting a picture, talking with a friend or a loved one, holding the hand of a small child, volunteering in a homeless shelter, watching the surf roll up the beach as the sun rises on the horizon: at certain moments in our lives these very ordinary experiences connect us with something that somehow feels more real than the superficial and trivial concerns that usually engage us.
That feeling of deeper, truer perception doesn’t just illuminate the moment in which we have it; it casts a light onto the rest of our lives. Something triggers a moment of special clarity and insight that puts the issues and problems of our daily lives into a new and more meaningful perspective. Mystics and people with strong religious beliefs see these moments as encounters with God. But others feel that these experiences are ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious: they experience a feeling of intense meaning and perception that isn’t grounded in any specific religious or theological context.
Click the link to read the whole thing. And the whole series, for that matter.
Virtually all human beings encounter something in life that seems to transcend ordinary experience. This is true whether or not we believe in one God, many gods or no god at all. Almost all human beings have ‘peak experiences’ from time to time. There are moments and relationships in life that point beyond the physical realities toward the meaning of life. Painting a picture, talking with a friend or a loved one, holding the hand of a small child, volunteering in a homeless shelter, watching the surf roll up the beach as the sun rises on the horizon: at certain moments in our lives these very ordinary experiences connect us with something that somehow feels more real than the superficial and trivial concerns that usually engage us.
That feeling of deeper, truer perception doesn’t just illuminate the moment in which we have it; it casts a light onto the rest of our lives. Something triggers a moment of special clarity and insight that puts the issues and problems of our daily lives into a new and more meaningful perspective. Mystics and people with strong religious beliefs see these moments as encounters with God. But others feel that these experiences are ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious: they experience a feeling of intense meaning and perception that isn’t grounded in any specific religious or theological context.
Click the link to read the whole thing. And the whole series, for that matter.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
"Manna of St. Nicholas?"
We're not talking Sanny Claus here, but St. Nicholas of Myra, on whom he was based:
Today he is buried in the Italian city of Bari where his tomb is visited by thousands every year.
An annual ceremony since 1980 goes so far as to extract a clear liquid from his bones called the ‘manna of Saint Nicholas.’ According to the Catholic Church, the extract is said to hold healing properties.
Gah. Wonder how you use it? I ain't gone drink no bone juice.
Today he is buried in the Italian city of Bari where his tomb is visited by thousands every year.
An annual ceremony since 1980 goes so far as to extract a clear liquid from his bones called the ‘manna of Saint Nicholas.’ According to the Catholic Church, the extract is said to hold healing properties.
Gah. Wonder how you use it? I ain't gone drink no bone juice.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all of my readers. I hope you enjoy God's blessing upon yourselves and your families. Remember our military people serving overseas, most especially those in war zones away from their families, and remember the police, firefighters and EMT's who will be watching over us all during this special night.
I'll be taking tomorrow off from posting. Posting will resume Wednesday morning.
Bob Evans
Matthews, NC
CAROL
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
Joy shall be yours in the morning!
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet--
You by the fire and we in the street--
Bidding you joy in the morning!
For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison--
Bliss to-morrow and more anon,
Joy for every morning!
Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow--
Saw the star o'er a stable low;
Mary she might not further go--
Welcome thatch, and litter below!
Joy was hers in the morning!
And then they heard the angels tell
`Who were the first to cry NOWELL?
Animals all, as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
Joy shall be theirs in the morning!'
(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In the Willows, Chapter 5.)
I'll be taking tomorrow off from posting. Posting will resume Wednesday morning.
Bob Evans
Matthews, NC
CAROL
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
Joy shall be yours in the morning!
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet--
You by the fire and we in the street--
Bidding you joy in the morning!
For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison--
Bliss to-morrow and more anon,
Joy for every morning!
Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow--
Saw the star o'er a stable low;
Mary she might not further go--
Welcome thatch, and litter below!
Joy was hers in the morning!
And then they heard the angels tell
`Who were the first to cry NOWELL?
Animals all, as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
Joy shall be theirs in the morning!'
(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In the Willows, Chapter 5.)
Video: Henri - - The Worst Noel
via Daily Caller:
Sort of a feline version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I think, with Henri as Scrooge.
Sort of a feline version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I think, with Henri as Scrooge.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
A Favorite Christmas Tale
Chapter 5 of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In the Willows.
The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin nostrils and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back and a light steam rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty air, as the two animals hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter and laughter. They were returning across country after a long day's outing with Otter, hunting and exploring on the wide uplands where certain streams tributary to their own River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go. Plodding at random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made walking a lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, `Yes, quite right; THIS leads home!'
Click the link to read the rest. The Wind In the Willows is a favorite book of mine. It's possible to buy multiple copies of it, each illustrated by different illustrators: Tasha Tudor, Ernest Shepherd, Arthur Rackham, and many others. It was a favorite of President Theodore Roosevelt's and he read it to his children.
The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin nostrils and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back and a light steam rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty air, as the two animals hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter and laughter. They were returning across country after a long day's outing with Otter, hunting and exploring on the wide uplands where certain streams tributary to their own River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go. Plodding at random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made walking a lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, `Yes, quite right; THIS leads home!'
Click the link to read the rest. The Wind In the Willows is a favorite book of mine. It's possible to buy multiple copies of it, each illustrated by different illustrators: Tasha Tudor, Ernest Shepherd, Arthur Rackham, and many others. It was a favorite of President Theodore Roosevelt's and he read it to his children.
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Guaranteed Not To Offend!
It's the perfect Christmas holiday tree ornament:
And since this is aChristmas holiday post, where's the annual story about gold coins finding their way into a Salvation Army kettle? Haven't read that one yet this year. Maybe Obama has finally ruined the economy so badly that people can't bear to part with their gold (especially given the price of it these days).
And since this is a
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
WWII Monopoly?
Story here.
GULFPORT -- Kevin Boone wanted to take his ninth-grade students from Salmen High in Slidell to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans last spring, but he realized they didn't know much about the war.
Boone, who lives in Gulfport, decided the students would get more out of the field trip if they knew what happened in World War II and the history behind it.
"I hated to bring the students there without them having any background," Boone said. "It was spring, and they were tired of testing, so we did a fun learning game, and they researched most of the events of the war."
He decided a board game, such as Monopoly with a WWII theme, would be the best way to get the students interested and help them remember the facts.
Boone searched the Internet for such a game but couldn't find one, so he and his students created their own. He had five classes, and each created a version. The classes played each other's games rather than taking a written test.
The field trip was a success, Boone said, and he felt his students got more out of the experience than if they hadn't studied WWII.
Now, six months later, Boone and his students will go to the museum for the unveiling of Monopoly: America's WWII: We're All in This Together.
Game available here.
Just in time for Christmas. Play a game with your WWII veteran friends or relatives, maybe learn something you didn't know.
GULFPORT -- Kevin Boone wanted to take his ninth-grade students from Salmen High in Slidell to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans last spring, but he realized they didn't know much about the war.
Boone, who lives in Gulfport, decided the students would get more out of the field trip if they knew what happened in World War II and the history behind it.
"I hated to bring the students there without them having any background," Boone said. "It was spring, and they were tired of testing, so we did a fun learning game, and they researched most of the events of the war."
He decided a board game, such as Monopoly with a WWII theme, would be the best way to get the students interested and help them remember the facts.
Boone searched the Internet for such a game but couldn't find one, so he and his students created their own. He had five classes, and each created a version. The classes played each other's games rather than taking a written test.
The field trip was a success, Boone said, and he felt his students got more out of the experience than if they hadn't studied WWII.
Now, six months later, Boone and his students will go to the museum for the unveiling of Monopoly: America's WWII: We're All in This Together.
Game available here.
Just in time for Christmas. Play a game with your WWII veteran friends or relatives, maybe learn something you didn't know.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
What It's All About
And, even back in the early 1960's when A Charlie Brown Christmas was first broadcast, the network tried to get this part of the show cut out, thinking it was too religious and might offend someone. Charles Schulz was adamant that it remain, however. And so it did.
Merry Christmas to all of you.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Quote of the Day
To me it scarcely seems possible, but this issue you're reading marks the sixth anniversary of "The Old Man and the Boy" - - seventy-two pieces without a missed deadline, although there have been some frighteningly near squeaks. Perhaps now my friends might like to join me in a sort of author's-eye view of what has been the pleasantest writing chore I ever took on.
About 180,000 printed words have been dredged out of boyhood trove of memories, the basic idea being that in an era of atomic power, zip guns and juvenile gang warfare something of excitement might be recalled from an ice age in which kids were given knives and guns as a reward for behaving themselves.
- - "The Smell of Christmas," Field and Stream magazine, December, 1958. As found in the book The Lost Classics of Robert Ruark.
About 180,000 printed words have been dredged out of boyhood trove of memories, the basic idea being that in an era of atomic power, zip guns and juvenile gang warfare something of excitement might be recalled from an ice age in which kids were given knives and guns as a reward for behaving themselves.
- - "The Smell of Christmas," Field and Stream magazine, December, 1958. As found in the book The Lost Classics of Robert Ruark.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
It's Arizona's Version of the Poe Toaster
That is to say, a mystery recurring over many years, to the delight of local residents.
Once upon a time on a Thanksgiving weekend long ago, an unassuming juniper tree on Arizona Interstate 17 became more than just a tree.
Under cover of darkness, parties unknown adorned the evergreen with ribbons and ornaments and tinsel so that motorists between Phoenix and Flagstaff might smile and admire its cheery demeanor.
As sometimes happens, the secret trimming became a holiday tradition, and it became a subject of Arizona lore.
The spectacle was dubbed "Mystery Christmas Tree."
For about three decades, travelers eagerly awaited a glittering diversion in the median near Milepost 254, just north of the Sunset Point rest area.
Investigative journalists tried -- and failed -- to identify the anonymous decorators. Some folks credited Santa's helpers. Others insisted that Arizona Highway Patrol officers or Department of Transportation workers were involved.
But no one was ever caught in the act, and nobody stepped forward.
Just like the Poe Toaster, whose decades-long tradition of "toasting" the grave of Edgar Allan Poe on the occasion of the poet's annual January birthday sadly came to an end a couple of years ago.
Once upon a time on a Thanksgiving weekend long ago, an unassuming juniper tree on Arizona Interstate 17 became more than just a tree.
Under cover of darkness, parties unknown adorned the evergreen with ribbons and ornaments and tinsel so that motorists between Phoenix and Flagstaff might smile and admire its cheery demeanor.
As sometimes happens, the secret trimming became a holiday tradition, and it became a subject of Arizona lore.
The spectacle was dubbed "Mystery Christmas Tree."
For about three decades, travelers eagerly awaited a glittering diversion in the median near Milepost 254, just north of the Sunset Point rest area.
Investigative journalists tried -- and failed -- to identify the anonymous decorators. Some folks credited Santa's helpers. Others insisted that Arizona Highway Patrol officers or Department of Transportation workers were involved.
But no one was ever caught in the act, and nobody stepped forward.
Just like the Poe Toaster, whose decades-long tradition of "toasting" the grave of Edgar Allan Poe on the occasion of the poet's annual January birthday sadly came to an end a couple of years ago.
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