Autumn and Winter Holiday Photos, Songs, Poems, Comments, and Snark
 

Autumn and Winter Holiday Photos, Songs, Poems, Comments, and Snark

I am a sucker for the photo threads. I'd like to see one with images for the upcoming holidays. Shall we concentrate on harvest themes till the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is over? Doesn't matter. Anyway, snark and cultural criticism are welcome. As are sentiment and sparklies and genuine expressions of gratitude and joy.

(0h and this is not meant to encroach on the annual Tom Turkey thread.)

This happened once when I was in grad school and our friends got together.
http://www.calfinder.com/blog/wp-con...ers-guests.jpg

I spent the summer in Sonoma and am going up the weekend before Thanksgiving. I hope it looks like this.
http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/u...mn_560x373.jpg

I shared this pic on facebook but it is worthy of this thread i think...

I took this from my car when i was visiting patients a few weeks ago up on Rockwood Mountain. The beauty i have seen this season makes my heart so happy.

I just stopped my car and soaked it all in for a moment.

Love this time of year!!!!

Love this thread!!!!


http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/t...le75/drive.jpg

I am too technologically challenged to know how to post pictures. I can add a story.

One Thanksgiving my Gramps was there. He was in a nursing home at the time. He sat at the head of the table with a glass of beer and he was pretty happy. He was not supposed to eat solid food and so had his plate of the mushy stuff. After dinner was over and everyone was lounging around in the living room Gramps shuffled his wheelchair over to the turkey platter and grabbed a huge turkey leg and chowed down. By the time someone saw him he had eaten down to the bone and did not choke. He was really happy. I hope someday when I am old I will be able to wheel myself up to the table and eat a turkey leg! I miss my Gramps and the holidays always makes me think of the delicious red cabbage he used to make.

Lovely photo. Tennessee in the Fall. Perfect.

Great story, Julie. Made me smile.

When my sons were very young (before they were even teenagers), I used to take them to Laurelhurst Park and we'd feed the ducks, watch the swans, then retreat to the playground and I'd sit in a swing and watch them climb like monkeys on metal structures and run with glee saying, "Mommy, Mommy, watch me!!!!"

And, I did... My boys were a source of delight and joy as children and quite playful too. :stillheart:



http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/...c608f6bb61.jpg

We had these when I was a kid. I think you could get them with green stamps. http://i.ebayimg.com/t/51-PCS-TAYLOR...5I!~~60_35.JPG

vegetarian Thanksgiving meal. Looks yummy.

http://www.epicurious.com/images/art...giving_612.jpg

Martina? I forgot to share with you (and others here) that I just smiled and smiled to see that picture of the puppy eyeing that ham! *LOL* Bless that puppies, heart! Too cute!

Also, that pizza looks mighty yummy! mMmMmMMmm!

Julie? I remember green stamp booklets and earning stamps via purchases to get items such as the dish set (in the photo you provided)! That reminds me of way back in the era of the 60s & 70s.... my mom's mother (my grandmother) used to get green stamps at her neighborhood pharmacy. She would buy Kodak film for grandpa, who loved taking pictures of family on family vacations or whenever... and she also got greenstamps when she purchased her prescriptions too. I believe they were "S&H green stamps". I even think she got them at the grocery store too and a person earned a particular amount of stamps, based upon the total purchase of items you would buy. For example, back then, if grandmother spent about $150.00, she would be given not only a reciept for her purchase but also a long strand of stamps to go inside in her booklet that she could fill out and then trade in for any item listed in their catalogue of items for trade/exchange. I don't know if this model of exchange/trade is still practiced, specifically; but I am thinking that present day marketing campaigns may use a model that is similar in that some stores may give redeemable coupons toward the purchase of a competitors product or some such thing, possibly. But I do remember the trading stamps...



http://www.thewellstonloop.com/wp-co.../08/Stamps.jpg


Actually, it kind of reminds me of Carnival Glass - which I love to come across when I happen to be browsing a store that sells antique items of interest. In my family, sometimes on holidays specifically, my mom and dad would break out special glassware items which were handed down to them by friends and family who won artifacts of Carnival Glass at carnivals... usually at a State Fair or even found at a World's Fair - which our family happened to travel to Seattle to the World's Fair that was hosted there and the Space Needle was the anchoring exhibit of that World's Fair. My father had a brother who lived in the Seattle area and we visited them back then and I remember seeing the Space Needle and the women dressed in their 'Space Needle' attire. I was only three years old or so back then, I believe. But I remember aspects of that visit so very clearly to this day.

Anyway, mom and dad had a set of bowls (see picture below) that we used for serving cranberry sauce and other bowls held butter mints and other items used in holiday suppers.

http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/...CD27B3516E7290

Our family even had a punch bowl, like the one below, that we used for serving punch ... much later after supper was over and toward the end of the holiday gathering, we'd serve punch, coffee, and the delectable treats my father made for dessert: Apple Streusel, Cinnamon Rolls (that would put Cinabon rolls out of business), and pies - Lemon Merange, Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry Cheesecake and German Fruitcake (to die for!). My mother couldn't cook anything, except a depression era chocolate cake. My father was the cook in our household, but his talent was honed by his mother's sister, my great-aunt Kate. Everyone invited to Aunt Kate's house for a holiday supper never left with out eating the best of the best or taking something home with them too. My father was the same way, too. Holiday suppers were truly wonderful and filled with lots of storytelling, hanging out with cousins, friends and other relatives... lots of good memories.

http://image0-rubylane.s3.amazonaws....s/CPB01.1L.jpg

PS (for Princessbelle!)/ I loved that photo you shared with us... very, very beautiful! I can see why you stopped just to breathe all of the gorgeousness in! :)

Gathering Leaves

by Robert Frost

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?


http://www.zingerbugimages.com/backg...utumn_road.jpg

Thanksgiving Morning 2011 Wears Valley TN Cabin View
 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qVYSfPJxr1...s400/sauna.jpg

Breitenbush Hot Springs (bath house)

http://blog.oregonlive.com/travel_im...07/terwill.jpg

Bagby Hotsprings


Both places are clothing optional, but I love to go to either place to soak in the hot springs... be one with nature, and both places are favorite fall/winter getaways.

It's a tradition amongst my other Pagan friends to post this video during the Winter holiday season.

Holiday Dinner Table

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/...e/DSC02409.jpg

Dona Nobis Pacem (Let There Be Peace on Earth), Mozart

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

~Robert Frost

I think snow is beautiful, for a moment. And then I'm done with it. I could live quite happily in a tropical climate and never miss the snow and cold...

...But my dog Cosmo is another story

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/...IMG_1997-1.jpg

SNOW is the BEST THING EVER for Cosmo.
And every morning when we have a fresh snow he gleefully dives into it and rolls around, catches the snowballs I throw with his mouth and could play for hours in it. (And I can't help but smile)

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