I'm dreaming of... Thanksgiving first.

I love Christmas; I do believe it is my favorite holiday, although I really just love this entire festive season, and that is why I dream of a day when each holiday will be given its due. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving is like the forgotten middle child; stuck between its better known siblings – Halloween and Christmas – it has to be content with hand-me-downs from the former while being quickly edged out of the spotlight by the latter. And this year it looks as though Thanksgiving could be forgotten altogether; with the economy lagging, stores everywhere have cut right to the chase and are advertising "Black Friday prices" for this weekend; some radio stations are already playing all Christmas all the time (let's do the math - are there even that many Christmas songs?); and at least five of our neighbors put up their decorations the weekend after Halloween, including their indoor trees.  I'm all for Christmas, but please, we need to strive for holiday equality.  Don't let Thanksgiving down.

Calvin's first voting experience

Well, not really, since he went with me to vote in the primaries last spring, but he really seemed to take an interest in what we were doing today in a way that obviously didn't happen those several months ago.  Of course, that's likely because we made it a sort of holiday.  Our polling place is a little less than a mile away and, since there is a Koney Island en route and the weather was beautiful, we packed up early and headed out.  We started Calvin's day with a Mickey Mouse pancake, then walked the rest of the way to the polling place in a deliciously warm autumn sun.  Our wait was about 1.5 hours and my only complaint is that half of it was inside; what a waste on such a delightful day!  But Calvin was incredibly well behaved and the process was a very smooth one; we were voters number 1,003 and 1,004 (oh if only we'd been three people earlier!), which I took as a sign of great voter turnout since the population (total) of our district is only 3,500 and it was only 11am when we signed in.  On the way out Calvin was delighted to have earned his "I voted" sticker, and a cup of apple cider from the tent outside, and spent most of the walk home calling out "hurray, I voted!" to everyone we passed.  It seems an auspicious beginning to his relationship with this civic duty.

More pictures in the November 2008 album (yes, it really is November).

Tomorrow can change our world

There's no sugar in wooden eggs

Halloween, that sugar laden pinnacle of the child's fall calendar, has come and gone, blessed by the orange rays of a miraculously warm fall sun. We're holiday fans here, and Halloween is no exception, so after breakfast we packed up and headed into Ann Arbor for the costume parade and trick-or-treating along Main Street.  Calvin chose his own costume this year (from an array of offered ideas, of course), opting to be a scarecrow - the easiest (and cheapest) home cooked costume ever: I got a number of fabric swatches from my godmother, Lonnie, and used thick thread and large stitches to put patches on a $2 resale shirt; for his head, a $1 straw hat to which I added ribbon from my craft collection and a couple of additional patches; and for the icing on the costume cake I added handfuls of straw (from the farm down the road) to his sleeves and hat. He was pretty excited about the costume, and everyone else seemed to enjoy it, but he was nervous about approaching strangers to say trick-or-treat.  The candy collecting process, however, was a big hit. In fact, having made rounds in both Ann Arbor and later in our own neighborhood, he came away with copious amounts of candy, none of which we thought he needed to eat. In the end we made a deal with him and he traded in all of the candy he collected (which we promptly passed back out to kids at our own door) for the opportunity to pick out a new toy. Therefore, today, instead of a sugar rush, he has a brand new carton of wooden eggs for his kitchen, with which he is at least equally as happy (the toy lasts longer anyhow) and we are much happier.  I think next year we will be the dreaded house in the neighborhood that passes out raisins.

More pictures in the Halloween 2008 album.

It's October 31st...