Thanksgiving went off without much of a hitch. Here’s a family photo.
The green one in the can is my Dad. I think he came out of the den long enough to eat and then he retreated again to the dismal aloof hermit-ness that is his pathetic life.
The one with the black cape is Mom. She prepared the bird and though was pretty well behaved and not psychotic, she does tend to suck the life out of a person.
Thanksgiving highlight: Nobody ended up in the hospital or rehab.
The rest of the long weekend was good. We went to see an incredible local annual festival of lights. It’s in a park and you drive though these displays, more than a million lights and 70+ larger-than-life displays, it’s fantastic. This picture doesn’t quite do it justice. My favorite part is driving through the winter wonderland of giant falling snowflake lights.
Movies—we’ve seen three good ones lately; kids’ movies of course, but hey, they’re good anyway.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—I can’t give enough props to J.K. Rowling and her story weaving ability. She’s kept it going through an intricately entwined series. The Girl was a little disappointed because the movie didn’t include everything from the more than 800 page book, and still it was like 2 ½ hours long. I’ve started reading the books and I think they’ll be great. If you’ve ignored HP up to now, don’t. Really, the movies are good. Of course I also watched the entire Lord of the Rings series in one weekend before and loved it, so take it for what it’s worth.
Madagascar—Chris Rock is perfect as Marty the Zebra; there are Penguins (love it) and catchy music and now the kids know where Madagascar is! LOL Rent it, it’s funny, and you’ll be singing, I like to move it move it ala the Lemur King (my favorite character).
Polar Express—Tom Hanks does an outstanding job playing all the different roles in this one. I haven’t read the book so I can’t compare, but it’s a good story; something different from the typical Christmas hype, commercialization and greed.
On life and goals:
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?—Charles M. Schulz
The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.—Joseph Addison
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.—Richard Bach
I give you these as food for thought and direct you to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, which, incidentally was not intended as a Christmas classic. As we go through life, wondering why we’re here, what marks we’ve left, what goals we’ll reach I think from time to time we need to remember that everything we say and do touches other people. We may never realize how we’ve made a difference, but I believe, in some way, we all do. I don’t think our lives should be measured in the things we have, the jobs we succeed in, the children we give birth to, the marriages we make, but instead in the simple goodness we share by being friends, helping people and trying our best, no matter what we try.
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