Happy Thanksgiving

 

To every American I wish Happy Thanksgiving.

May everybody have a good lunch in good company and a lot of joy.

Good luck with the carving.

And now let's remember the First Thanksgiving in America.

"Blaring trumpets and thundering serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet's captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez performed a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a comunal meal.

Some Florida historians have argued that this feast - and not the one held 56 years later by th ePilgrims and the Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts - was actualy North America?s First Thankgiving. It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanet settlement in the land", wrote University of Florida Professor Emmeritus of History Michael Gannon in his book The Cross in the Sand."

 (https://www.history.com/news/did-florida-host-the-first-thanksgiving)

The Christmas Tree

 As everybody knows, I can only think about Christmas time.

Now I'm thinking about my Christmas Tree, that we will put up again, as we always do, on the first day of December.

It is quite old, we bought it some twenty years ago and it begins to show its age but we like it so much that we are decided that it will be there, every Christmas, for some more years.

Then it came to my mind to post some pictures that I already posted in other years to remind me of past Christmas. 

It will  be more details than the whole tree but each one will remind me of hapy times and make me feel looking forward to see it up this year again with all the decorations that we have for a long time.

I always count on my girls to put the tree up and decorate, they already know how I want things done.

So, next 1 of December there we will be carrying the boxes of the tree, the lights, the balls, everything, to put the tree up.

I can't wait for it.

Sweet things for Christmas

Christmas is a time for good things, and also the ones to eat. So now I'll post about the desserts and all non savoury things for Christmas that we are used to have.

In my home, rather, in my family since I know myself, we have some things on Christmas that we can't fail making. They are portuguese things like Rabanadas, slices of fried bread, Sonhos and Bolo Vicente (Vincent cake).

About this cake I must tell you that is a tradition developed by my grandmother as she always made it at Christmas time - and only then, only at Christmas time!

So everybody waited for that glorious moment.

When I got married I replaced my grandmother on that task and started baking  the aforementioned cake for several households in various sizes, depending on the number of persons in each house.

My grandmother is in Heaven now and I never stopped baking the Bolo Vicente because everybody likes it so much and to honour her too.

So another thing she always did were the Rabanadas, also called Fatias Douradas (Golden Slices) and the Sonhos and, as with the cake, I replaced her doing for us and for them, my Grandmother and Parents. To the other homes I din't make it but as we all used to get together for Christmas Eve and Day, they  always eat them in my house.

For the Rabanadas we always mix sugar and cinnamon and put on top of them while they are still warm. My uncle likes to eat them with honey. It's very good too.

Never mind the food that appears first in the picture, this is sausage rolls, I mean the other one, it's Arroz Doce, a thing similar to Rice Pudding but much. much better.

A Christmas Log made by my sister. Oh I do like it but mainly the Fios de Ovos, on top of it.

The Bolo Rei, a must in every Christmas in this corner of the world - here half eaten because it's very good.

And we can't forget the Mince Pies

and the Christmas Pudding.

And something that I always make for Christmas but that we begin eating since the first falling leaves: Apple Crumble. 

These pictures I'm posting here are from past Christmases but I will try hard to not forget to take some pictures of the ones I will make this year and post them after Christmas.

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Partying at 

A Stroll Thru Life  

Slices of Life

My Wee Abode

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

I know that in this corner of the world, where I live, it doesn't usually snows. In the North, yes, but not here.

I know that some years ago, a lot of them, it snowed here, after a very big discharge of hail. First it was fritening, and some hours after there it began snowing. How lovely it was. 

But it was January, not December.

Anyway, we can dream, isn't it?

Just look at the athmosphere of this painting. The snow covering the floor, the heavy sky ready for more, the light inside the houses, people talking, it reminds me when we are out and feel like going home. And we go, feeling all the peace.

One thing that helps me to feel as if it snowed is to look at nice wintery and Christmassy scenes, so I will post here some for you to see too.

We really can feel that we are in those pre Christams days, wondering in the streets and window shopping.

Going home...

Well, we never know, maybe it will snow this year.

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Partying at A Stroll Thru Life

I'll be home for Christmas

 

This is such an interesting advertising. We can learn History in old ads, we can study social and mental History by the way they dress, the houses, what they write, how they think but in this one we see all that and more, we see the end of the World War II. 

It talks about how, for some time, it was advised not to travel but as the war ended, people could see crouds of men in the transports, ships, trains but also in buses going home. And it's here that this Company enters. They advertise how as in this new world they can provide a good service on the return to normality and help bring happiness to each home and family.

And above everything, in that Christmas children would be able to see their parents and wives would be able to see their husbands coming home - the ones that didn't die in the war, that is.

In this Christmas that is coming now, when life is getting harder, for several reasons, around the world, let's hope that every mother can hear their children, and every children can hear their fathers and every woman can hear their husbands saying:

I'll be home for Christmas !

And the season goes on

 

I give thanks for being able to buy presents for my family. Thanks God.

That said, let's enjoy the process and the season.

How good it is to look for things, to do window shopping and admire the decorations.

To feel well in the spirit of the season, let's stroll by those wonderful times from the past shown in magazine covers and advertisement.

It was such an wonderful time.

I do feel really well watching those illustrations.

Let's go.

Notice the cloths, the environement, the joy as everybody feels the Christmas season, the men rising the Father Christmas, the boy happy watching it, the women strolling and the happy couple in the left corner.

I can feel I'm there. In my mind, in my soul, I am one of those. Such wonderful times.

People arrive at the store, looking everywhere and thinking where to go.

Up the stairs, full of enthusiam, looking to each side, watching the things to buy and the people around. Such anticipation.

Some full of presents already while others arrive all happy.

Enough, I have enough, let's go home.

I'm going home, I'm just getting there.

How good it is to go back home, to see, approaching, the light in our home.

Thanks be to God.

Good times

I know that we all live in the time that God chose for us so we must be happy and thankful for that but I hope He doesn't mind that I think that I would like so much to have lived in the times prior to the middle of the 60'. I think that was then that the ugliness and lack of morals replaced the old order. Not that there wasn't bad people before, but in the whole, times were better.

That's why I like so much to watch illustrations that show us those wonderful times. I approve the way people lived, the houses, the clothes, everything, including the first years of the decade of 60. In the middle of the decade things changed and I don't like it. But I know that even after it some people found a way to dress nicely.

Now just watch these scenes.

People nicely dressed, nice houses, a sence of security in the streets, people smiling and talking.

And I would like a bit of snow.

Such nice houses, such good life.

Images of Trevor Mitchell.

Happy times

 

This picture with  the older couple reminds me of such happy past times when my grandmother was alive and later when she was not but my mother was and my father, and we had at our house a very large Christmas Eve dinner and lunch on the Christmas day.

They would come, also my sister with her husband and son and my brother with his wife. I had children then and it was a very happy time.

But we are where God puts us so we must accept each season in life and be happy with what we have. 

I haven't with me my grandmother, mother and father but I have my own children and we have happy times as we are. And we give thanks to God.

So, let's be happy.

Now I will post here some work of Trevor Mitchell which picture so well the cosiness of Christmas in family, that wonderful comfort of after lunch when people was alredy well fed and just seat relaxing and enjoying the happiness of having a family.

Happy times.

Time goes by and new generations replace old ones, now it's me who is becoming older and my children are adult. These are new times but can be happy too, so it's such a joy to see Christmas approaching and doing all the preparations.

Thanks be to God.