It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like…

I celebrate Christmas but I recognize that others don’t and I’m okay with that. So I’m more than willing to wish a Happy Holidays to those who celebrate Chanukkah or Kwanzaa or some other variety, or nothing at all. To those who do celebrate it: Merry Christmas!

That’s really not relevant to anything else, but I wanted to say it.

With all of the gang gathered here last year, there was barely room
for all the stockings on the mantle.

This year Christmas is going to be different for us (my husband and I). For the last forty-some years, Christmas for our family has centered around our house, the one our children grew up in. The presents accumulated under our tree and everyone gathered here on Christmas Eve to hang stockings and then again on Christmas morning for cinnamon rolls and breakfast quiche before present-opening would begin. There’s always been lots of loud music, raucous games, laughter, and activity.

Even as our kids grew up, got married, and began their families, we always had one or more of them, with spouses and babies, here for the day. This year will be different. Our youngest daughter lives in northern Indiana and had her third child this year. It’s no longer practical for them to travel hundreds of miles each way to spend the holiday with parents.

Our only son moved to England some ten years ago, and married a lovely young Englishwoman. They have an 18-month-old daughter and a second child on the way. They actually did fly over for Christmas last year, but this year they’ll spend the holiday with her family in Kent.

Fortunately our oldest daughter lives close by, so we’ll likely go to her home Christmas morning, taking along our gifts. We’ll join her, her husband, two grown children, and her adult stepdaughter. Dinner will be at our place, since they don’t have a dining area large enough to accommodate everyone.

I’m really very glad that all of my kids have grown up to be wonderful people, and I’m thrilled they’ve all found someone to love, who loves them in return. I’m delighted to be grandmother to six lovely kids (and counting). This is what every parent wants for their children.

But it will still be an oddly quiet Christmas. On the other hand there should be more time for reading and writing.

Who knows? Maybe next year we’ll travel ourselves and celebrate Christmas on Indiana or in England.

 

A Memorial Day to Remember

Golden Gate National Cemetary, Memorial Day 2015

Every year, we commemorate the sacrifices of our military heroes on two days, separated by six months. Memorial Day is the most American of the two as it was initiated in 1868 as Decoration Day, following the end of the War Between the States (also known as the Second War of Independence), the American Civil War.

Traditionally, graves of Union soldiers were decorated with flowers. The Confederate soldiers were commemorated similarly, but on a separate day. By the 20th Century, the competing days merged into the one we now know, the last Monday of May, the beginning of summer.

Veterans Day (originally known as Armistice Day and Remembrance Day in other countries in Europe) commemorates the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month when the guns went silent at the end of World War I. This holiday evolved from this WWI connection to honor the service of all veterans of the U.S. Armed forces. Memorial Day honors the military personnel who died while serving our country. 

Drought-affected GGNC, Memorial Day 2015

This year, unlike so many in the recent past, the United States is not engaged in any major conflict on foreign soil, a reason to think of this year’s holiday as one to be set apart. 

Along with many of my fellow Americans, I visited the graves of members of my family who served in the U.S. Army during World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War. To my knowledge, no one in my family died in combat, despite a long history of service in the Armed Forces.

Since the 1950s, the Golden Gate National Cemetery has been the resting place of uncles, aunts, my parents and siblings. My father and uncle, both U.S. Army officers, are buried with their wives. My sister-in-law passed away a year before my brother and they were interred together in my parent's grave. 

These vast rows of white tombstones and flags are, at once, a majestic and a sorrowful sight.

This post is in Memory of

• Moses F Verrill, Infantryman, US Army, 20th Maine, War Between the States
• Hiram W Verrill, PFC, US Army, WWI
• Thomas A Verrill, Sr. Captain, US Army, WWII
• Charles A. Adams, Sargent, US Army, WWII
• Owen K Nichols, US Navy, Korean War
• Thomas A Verrill, Jr. 1st Lt, US Army, Vietnam War

And in Honor of

• Maxine M Dillahunty nee Verrill, 1st Lt, US Army, Korean War,
• William D. Dillahunty, Airman 2nd Cl, US Air Force, Korean War

And with especial thanks to every one of the veterans and serving personnel who volunteer and are prepared to give their lives to protect and preserve our liberty.