Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving!!!  A (basically) All-American Holiday!
U - S - A !!  U - S - A !!  U - S - A !!

As an architecture professional, I submit this card I made:

Happy ArchiTurkey Day!

Same Bat-Place, New Bat-Face

Welcome to 2011 and welcome to the new Pa(ren)thetic Life blog!!

For those of you who understood the reference of this post's title, I apologize the deliberate cheeky-ness.  For those who did not, learn some culture!  I may be four months or so early but my blog has been resurrected!  It has a new name (because my lovely beau insisted there was simply not enough HaHa to justify the blog's previous name) and corresponding title image, but the web address is still the same.  The direction of content will remain the same (since I was and still am the sole contributor) and hopefully touch on more varied subjects.  Though, it's been nearly a year since my last post so I'm just going to pick up where I left off. 

Seeing as its the tail end of the usual end-of-the-year Holiday Season, its time for my annual e-card via Photoshop:

This year, in addition to resolving to eat better and exercise more frequently (those resolutions could only be more untimely if made while eating pumpkin pie at the end of Thanksgiving Dinner), I also intend to post to my blog more regularly.


Happy 2011!!!  I'll be back here again soon.

Better Late Than Never?

Yikes! It's been about 3 weeks since my last post, so this might be about a week late.  Oops!  Life just happenned and got in the way of me and my laptop reaching into the blogo-verse.  Lets get on to the post.

The Christmas Season of 2007 was my first in DC and I wanted to make a Holiday Card that included an unmistakable reference to this nation's fabulous capital.  At the time, I was working alot of hours and kind of wound up doing a bit of a rush-job.  I pulled a picture of the Lincoln Memorial I had taken and a picture of me my mother had taken and slapped them together.  I did a quick drop of text and sent the thing out before I got on a plane to fly home for the holidays.  The next day, I'm on the phone with my girlfriend and she said, "did you misspell 'Christmas' on purpose?  Like, as a funny thing in the card?"  Freaking out, I opened the file and saw that I did, indeed, misspell 'Christmas'.  The thing is, I'm not the best of typists and I'm of the generation that grew up having MS Word automatically point out or correct our typing errors.  It was just a little unfortunate that my quirk manifested itself on one of my Holiday Cards.  But I decided it wouldn't really be a card from me unless it had something like a poorly typed word to really pass along a part of my personality.  Fun!

For the Holidays of 2009, I stepped up the DC-ness a bit and I stepped up the Leo-ness too.  Also I tried to incorporate Christmas and New Years festivities to make it a more general holiday card.  Though the colorization on the Santa sleigh wasn't exaclty to my liking (and still drives me bit coo-coo), I think the overall card was a success.

Which brings us to this past Holiday Season's card (though we're still liturgically in the season until tomorrow - Jan 6).  I took the original idea behind my Cards - mimicking families sending yearly cards - and kind of molded it to the way I live.  When I left my childhood home in Texas, one of the things my mother sent me off with was this flat-profile, roll-out, wall-hanging, cloth christmas tree (pictured here).

And that's me posing with it the night I put up my lights.  My mom has a tree just like it that she puts up at home, only she has more flat ornaments than I do.  Anyway, alot of family holiday cards people send out have a photo with them in front of their household Christmas Tree, so I adapted that concept to me.

So Happy New Years, Blog!!!  Welcome to 2010.  From Me, me, ME, and mE.

Next blog is about NPR and music.  How could that combination ever disappoint?

2006-2007 Holidays...When It All Started

During the Holiday Season of 2006, I realized it was the first one where I was in some sort of a household, apart from the one my parents created.  It was my 5th year of college (I was in a 5 year professional program, the 5th year was a requirement not a choice) and I was living in an apartment off-campus with one of my best friends, Zach.  the holiday season had come upon us and I was feeling the good cheer.  Though I was still preoccupied with finals and papers, I managed to stay in the season.

It was the first time I bought and decorated a (fake) Christmas Tree for a place I lived in.  It came out so well!

As Christmas neared, I realized that people were sending Christmas cards left, right, and center.  Since Zach and I were technically out in the world on our own, I decided that we too should have a Christmas card to send out.  So, with my fabulous Photoshop-ing skills, I modified a picture my roomie and I took that Halloween (we were Turk and J.D. from Scrubs), found a cheezy lookinng background somewhere on the internets, and tossed on some text.

The card was so much fun to make and it was received so warmly, I decided that I should do one every year.  This was just the first, but I've yet to do my best.

07-08 and 08-09 retrospectives are still coming, building up to the unveiling of this year's card!

To Give Thanks

Yesterday was one of the greatest of American holidays: Thanksgiving Day.

Though it was originally similar to, and may in fact be derived from, European harvest festivals.  Its a day that has truly become a signature American Event.  Though Canada might try to claim the first Thanksgiving (I know, its just so adorable of them to think they're that big), lets be honest, America had the first real Thanksgiving and we know how to do it right.

First, lets look at the places who have an official, annual, State-Declared Thanksgiving Day.  Grenada celebrates their annual Thanksgivng Day holiday on October 25.  They have it to celebrate and commemorate the anniversary of the American-led invasion of the island in 1983.  Then, we sent in the military, along with some coalition forces, to respond to levels of unrest after the deposition and execution of Grenadan Prime Minister (though he actually rulled the country more like a dictator would - along the lines of 'free' Iran) Maurice Bishop.  There's still disagreement about whether we should have engaged, but the country has a holiday to selebrate that action, so you're welcome Grenada.

The Canadian version is the second Monday in October.  Before they had a regular date, they used to just declare it for whaterver reason they felt was appropriate.  Like if Canadia wins the Olympic Hockey Gold Medal, or scientists declare an overpopulation of moose and hunting season gets extended, or the national dealership says there's a sale on Zambonis, or whatever it is that floats Canadian boats.  Now, its just a nationalized harvest festival where you're supposed to be greatful for the bounty of harvest the lands of Canada yielded.  Weak.

Though there had been thanksgiving days and celebrations in America since 1619, and though what we modern Americans regard as the 'First Thanksgiving' was celebrated in 1621, it was quite some time before we got a National Thanksgiving Day.  Periodically, throughout the years, leaders of American colonial settlements proclaimed days of Thanksgiving - but they were not regular declarations, though often they were to commemorate some sort of victory in armed conflict, having survived and come out of a particularly harsh winter, or (of course) an especially bountiful harvest season.

The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving in America was given by the Continental Congress in the year 1777 to celebrate vicroty over the British in Saratoga (Suck it, England).  Since then, American Presidents would intermidently declare national Days of Thanksgiving until the year 1863.  That year, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November a national Thanksgiving Day.  From then until 1939, each American Presidant took time every year to declare the final Thursday in November a national Thanksgiving Day.

In 1939, because November had 5 Thursdays, President Franklin D Roosevelt declared, not the final, but the fourth Thursday of that month to be national Thanksgiving Day.  Then, in 1940 and 1941 he declared the third Thursday of November to be national Thanksgiving Day.  I'm sure that at this time they didnt have presidantial approval ratings, but FDR was just trying to stimulate the economy (how oddly relevant).  Because, at the time, advertising for Christmas sales was considered so crass and classless to do before Thanksgiving, FDR thought that by moving up the date of the Thanksgiving Holiday (seriously, where did those days go), retailers would experience greater sales due to increased time for Christmas marketing campaigns.  Apparently, there was such an uproar that on October 6, 1941, Congress signed a joint resolution making Thanksgiving Day the final Thursday of November starting the next year, 1942.  There was a little bit of unhappiness about that so in December, the Senate made it ammended the resolution so that the fourth Thursday of November (no matter whether the month had 4 or 5 Thursdays), beginning in 1942, would be Thanksgiving Day.  On December 26, 1941, the President signed the bill and since then, the occurance of Thanksgiving Day in America was federal law.  Dig that.

Over time, the celebration of Thanksgiving Day was morphed and become a sort of hybrid occurance that encompases and elevates many aspects of our daily indivudual and collective lives.  Thanksgiving Days used to be religious celebrations, often tied to being greatful for a bountiful harvest.  Now, the religious portion of Thanksgiving is almost wholly put to the side; the aspect of plentiful and delicious foodstuffs is still a primary aspect of the holiday; but the current methods of celebration would not be recognized by the settlers of Plymoth.

For out modern Thanksgivings, we have the build-up to Black Friday and the anticipation of the Chirstmas shopping season.  We have sporting events, where we watch athletes more skilled than most of us could ever dream of being, matched in battles of physical accomplishments.  We have Turducken, and I think that stands on its own.  But something that has not failed to carry through, which I think our settling ancesters would be tickled pink to still see, is that the idea of being thankful and greatful is still what makes the holiday.

I hope that everyone took some time yesterday to realize that even though all our days may not reach perfection, and though we may not always be satisfied with what we might have, there are usually many things we can and should all be thankful for.

So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Remember, you're supposed to give thanks and be greatful for what you have and what you've been able to attain.  Afterall, its been federal law since 1942.  Happy Thanksgiving Day!