Thanksgiving Astronomy

Over the long weekend I managed to snap some photos of the Moon as it was between Aldebaran and the Pleiades.  The moon was a few hours shy of being full, so there's a lot of moon-flare in the pictures -- I had to use a two second exposure to get the Pleiades to show up at all, so most of the shots were "artsy."  This was a full moon with a penumbral eclipse, or I might have stayed up later trying to get a good shot of a temporarily crescent moon with the stars.  

One of these days, I'm going to have to put a little star on Portable Stonehenge for where Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomalhaut are.  4000 years ago, they used to line up with the solstices and equinoxes, but they've progressed and now they're roughly 60 degrees from where they were -- so Aldebaran is opposite the late Autumn sun now, and Antares is next to the sun right now. 

Our Thanksgiving was at home this year; just us and no other family members.  I made entirely too much stuffing.  Next year I'll need to remember to use less bread crumbs and more spices and chicken stock.  The Child cooked a (pre-cooked) chicken.  Mark made twice-baked yams.   

This season is hard on my folks, who really would like to see everyone, and who have been cooped up at their house.  We could socially distance ourselves outside their house during the summer and early autumn, but now it's too cold and wet.   We did mask up Sunday and put up their artificial tree that is too unwieldily for them to put up by themselves while they (mostly) socially distanced.  

On the plus side, their house is a large, open-plan building; so it's not like we're all crammed together into a postage-stamp-sized apartment, inhaling each other's exhalations.   On one hand I'm still a little uncomfortable seeing them and risking COVID-19; on the other hand, I'm glad we did help them, because Mark discovered the wiring on their tree was faulty when he got a shock from a string of lights he thought was unplugged (once again, Mark gets Good Husband Points because of a Christmas Tree).  

November 2014 Holiday Report

We had a nice Thanksgiving at my mother's sister's house.   There was lots of food.  And wine (when your cousin's a vintner, that helps on the wine front).  

Mark made a delicious (and gluten free!) cheesecake.

The cousins and second cousins (and the first cousins, once removed) get along very well.  One of the highlights of the day was assuring cousin Sameer that, yes, Oregonians in fact really did blow up a beached whale near Florence in the early 1970's.  Thank goodness for The Internet (you should have seen his face when raining chunks of exploded whale blubber crumpled car hoods).

The next day was Tree Decoration Day at my folk's house.  They do a lot of holiday entertaining, and like to get the tree up early.  It's an industrial strength artificial tree that's very tall.  It takes three or four grown-ups to set up.  

After about ten years, we finally figured out that unfolding the limbs at the bottom, one-by-one, and "fluffing" out the side branches makes the tree look a whole lot better than assembling the whole tree and then trying to fill out the places where forty-eight weeks of being in a box have flattened branches.

Although it can be cumbersome, it's much easier on the front door's frame than dragging a real live dead tree inside, there's no needles falling onto the floor, and we'll never have to fire up the chainsaw (in the house) to trim a few extra inches off of the trunk.

Thanksgiving

This year we had Thanksgiving at my folks' house. It was a quieter event this time around, as neither extended family on either side visited. 

Mom cooked most of the food, with assistance from Mark and everyone else (I basted the turkey and helped Mom stuff it).

Dad set the table, ran to the store for evaporated milk, and carved the turkey.

Mark made deserts (apple pie).

As the Family IT Guy, I updated Apple TV, the Roomba, and trouble-shot the light strings on the Christmas tree.

Dinner was lovely, and this time around I moderated the volume of stuffing I inhaled.

Thanksgiving 2010

I've been really busy. I keep meaning to post. Thanksgiving was fun. We decorated my folk's Christmas tree Very Early. We caught a rotovirus.