Simpler times-Perhaps: Part 2, Holidays

Happy Halloween.  In Minnesota, anyone around in Halloween 1991 will get nostalgic about the Big Halloween snowstorm. To say big is an understatement. We hardy Minnesotans make fun of those in the south that get an inch of snow and close down schools for a week, but this did stop even the hardiest. We ended with between 2 1/2 and 3 feet of snow and depending on blowing, the snow sometimes covered buildings. We did get DS out-he was a few months shy of 3, wearing a little ghost suit, he was hardly visible in the pictures in the neighborhood.  The birthday girl, DD#2, stayed snugly inside with me wearing a Halloween pumpkin pajama set.  For those that have any interest, Here is a Wkipedia version of the October snowstorm of the century. Each year, some one wonders if we will ever have snow again for Halloween. 

Thanksgiving 2001 was a memorable one. This was DD#2's first, and here is a picture of her in a little turkey sweatsuit, soundly sleeping in her dad's arms, he also passed out in a post turkey coma. Actually, he was very tired from getting up and heading downtown for the annual Gobble Gait, in which DS was going to run his first 8 K.  These were days when DH still did some running, but not like his marathon days before we were married.  He had given directions to our son  of where to meet up with him after the race if they got separated, and couldn't find me and the girls there to watch. It is still the family joke that when DH finished, and found us,  he was expecting to watch his son cross the finish.  We laughed at his thinking-DD had finished the race a good 5-10 minutes earlier, so at 12, had officially bypassed his dad's running abilities. We also have from that Thanksgiving somewhere, and this is on my list to archive, an interview DD#1 did with her great grandma about her childhood memories.  I always meant to get it transferred to a DVD, as a gift for her grandpa, but sadly, missed that opportunity.  

There were no stores open on Thanksgiving when I grew up except maybe gas station C stores, or grocery stores until 12:00. I worked in a grocery in high school and my first year of college and volunteered to work this shift because we didn't travel, and someone was bound to need a last minute item anyway that would have sent one of us into town.  It was kind of fun seeing the frantic last minute meal preparers running in to find stuffing, cranberry's, and other bits and pieces needed.  I remember one guy asking me,a teenager how to quickly thaw a frozen turkey.  My boss, a butcher turned grocery store owner, a large funny Italian man, telling him, "Here's what you do.  You eat Thanksgiving dinner on Monday." Jerry had a few thawed birds in back for just such a need, and gave him instructions on how he could still be setting the bird on the table by 5:00. For black Friday,  the earliest stores seemed to open was a more decent 7:00 a.m.  Soon it became 5:00, then midnight, and now some do not even to pause at all.

I won't even go down the Christmas lane. There are just too many things that bring up great memories of simpler times.  I feel though like I am back to those times in so many ways.  We seemed to have successfully raised kids that are more into experiences than stuff, even if those experiences get pricey as they are adults and have moved away. Still, we are embracing some new simplicity, even though it might be complex at first. I tried my hand at rosettes last year and DD#2 is hoping to help her grandma make lefse this year. We'll continue to do the Christmas village at the fairgrounds, and ooh and ah over each ornament that goes on the tree. Holiday's seemed simpler then, but it really is up to me how complex I want to make them.