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Friday, November 24, 2017

The First Thanksgiving



Blaring trumpets and thundering artillery serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet’s captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez performed a Catholic mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a communal meal.
Some Florida historians have argued that this feast—and not the one held 56 years later by the Pilgrims and Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts—was actually North America’s first Thanksgiving. “It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land,” wrote University of Florida professor emeritus of history Michael Gannon in his book “The Cross in the Sand.”

Thursday, November 23, 2017

One more month


One more month and it's Christmas. However I have to say that I am in Christmas mode since October - secretly since September.

As we haven't Thanksgiving, we don't need to wait for after it to gear into the Beautiful Season.
I have been shopping for presents since October but in spite of all my good intentions, I'm afraid I didn't wrap any of them.

The stash keeps growing and if I will not be careful I will end up with marathons of wrapping sessions.
Anyway. we still have time.

We only decorate for Christmas from 1 of December. I can't wait to put the Nativity and the tree up and candles and garlands and bells...

I began singing Christmas songs in October when everybody laughed at me because of that, imagine now that I can sing all I want.

I began putting together a Christmas planner with list of presents, to whom they are, the amount I spent and also what I need to buy as presents and for the meals of the Day and Eve.

I will keep reporting and reminding everybody that is the time to do it.