Tag: Living

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions

November 15, 2022

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions


Yesterday a notification from my calendar app popped up on my phone.  It read, “Pearson Family Thanksgiving at Mom & Daddy’s.”  It was an old recurring appointment I’d just never deleted.  I guess I hoped we’d restart it someday.  The recurring day was always the 15th of November and time was set as 4pm to 7pm just because my app in 2010 with my first smartphone didn’t allow “all day” appointments to give me day-before notifications.

Why would our family Thanksgiving be on the 15th instead of the fourth Thursday of each November?

Good question: here’s the historical answer…

It started after the first year Louis and I got married.  We had just tried to do Thanksgiving at his family’s (Grandma Jeanette’s house) and then Thanksgiving at my family’s – and were exhausted and Louis complained he was too full from one place to eat half of what he wanted to taste at my parent’s house.  Same happened at Christmas!  At least the food part wasn’t a big issue at Christmas.  His family always did presents and stuff at the crack of dawn (not really, but early) and my family usually had a big breakfast, tried all the kids’ patience, setup everything, made sure all the service workers had gotten a good nights’ sleep so it was later and lasted longer.  Christmas was easy.  Morning with his family, afternoon with mine.  

Plus, as the second year holidays approached, we realized that three of us (Louis, Katy, and Becca) worked service industry and didn’t have the actual Thanksgiving Day off.  Hmm… That made the decision even easier!  I approached my Daddy with an idea: what if, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Mom’s birthday each year instead of actual Thanksgiving Day – of course, they could still do the actual Thanksgiving, but the Travel Thanksgiving Day celebration when we all got together would be Mom’s birthday.  Daddy said, “two feast days for Thanksgiving?  Great idea.”  (or something very similar to that, I don’t remember the exact words)

We started celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on November 15th, my Mother’s birthday!  It was perfect, service industry workers could easily ask and get a random day a week and a half before the start of the holiday rush (pre-Nights-of-Lights for us Saint Augustinians), and we’d always make or buy a cake for Mom!  It was perfect!  (Then we could go to our own thing or for us, go to Louis’ family celebration on Thanksgiving Day, if we were off – Louis usually tried to make an appearance; even it is was briefly.)

Lots of stuff has happened to my birth family and we’ve tried to keep that tradition alive, but it isn’t happening this year.  Instead, we are hosting Thanksgiving for anyone able from 11/23 to 11/27.  A few of our family will be in town and able to visit.  Maybe some friends might pop in over those off-days (we are off work and the girls on break from college, Louis is on call, but he’s always on call) – family and friends make for fun days full of memories!  

I smiled at the notification because it today would mark four full years since we’d gone over to Mom and Daddy’s for “Pearson Thanksgiving on Mom’s Birthday” and all my older girls remember “two Thanksgiving parties” every year!  Lucas attended some, but doesn’t remember them.  Thea hadn’t ever been.  

So many things shifted in our family that now, getting days off before Thanksgiving, when most of us are on vacation is like “really?” and two of our children are grown (okay, Becky’s not legally an adult yet, but I consider her one) so I want our home to be the gathering place.  I want to be like Grandma Jeanette, the “glue” that holds the family together.  I want everyone to feel welcome and this year we’ve officially started opening our home to anyone during holidays (it feels like we have more space even though we don’t).  Not that we didn’t say it before “oh, you can just come by” no, this year we sent out timelines to family and have offered verbal invitations to friends of our kids and their families.  I want to be the fun memory-making place – and it won’t matter that we won’t be in this house next year for any of the fall holidays, our new place will be the new gathering place.  I want to build memories so my younglings keep coming back – even if one day they show up and say, “Dad, Mom, can we do Thanksgiving at your house on your anniversary instead of actual Thanksgiving Day?” – and yes, we’ll shift with the time to accommodate what our youngsters and their growing families need… but that’s WAY in the future, right?  

(Who am I kidding?  It seems like yesterday I proposed the question to my Daddy…)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Atrina Serrata

April 20, 2020

Atrina Serrata

What in the Earth? Actually, in the oceans. It is the scientific name for the Sawtooth Penshell.

Becky discovered two of these perfect shells, each about 6 inches long, on the high tide line at our favorite St Johns County beach. On the ride home, Becky researched them and we learned all about their life, their predators, how they likely died (based on their skeletons aka shells), and how they are cooked.

Yes, these particular bivalves are a seafood with a taste and consistency “quite like a scallop” according to the articles Becky found.

We have a rule of never taking living shells for our collection (this particular beach time would have been a great harvest of beautiful specimens if not for that rule!) but Becky said that now when she is ever stranded on a desert island (been watching too much Gilligan’s Island, I guess), she will know one good item to eat.

Perfect specimens have full shells and these both are broken on the fan edges. The bumps are actually raised sharp points like spikes. Their texture is almost leathery for a shell, and when they are in the sun, they shine with an oil-like sheen.

Beautiful.

A lovely addition to our seashell bowl (we may need a bigger bowl)!

Hope you enjoyed this educational tidbit (and maybe you can find some Atrina Serrata skeletons yourself on the lovely Florida beaches)!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Happiness Is…

When you close your eyes and see happiness, what do you see?

March 12, 2019

Happiness Is…

Each of us has a different view of happiness.  This is because we are all unique individuals with varying dreams, passions, interests, and desires!  Try this exercise:

Close your eyes.  Take a deep breath.  Think of the word, “happiness.”  What do you see?

For me, happiness is:

…Lucas racing his bike around the yard (he LOVES that bicycle)

…a clear bright blue Florida sky (hopefully with ocean sounds in my ears!)

…playing chef or chef’s assistant in the kitchen with family or friends with happy music playing (I LOVE the community feeling when there are two or more of us cooking together.)

…the sound of the waves, the feel of squishy sand, the salty sea smell (for perfection, add a surfboard.)

…the smell of sweet hay, the sound of farm animals, the sight of abundant fruit on trees and in a garden

…a bright, open, cheery home with a sanctuary for visiting relatives (Grandma suite, anyone?)

…every time I picture this perfection in my mind, I see my family.  Family, friends, community; living life together.  This is what I picture as happiness.

I often imagine heaven as a huge garden, overflowing with life, where all of us spend quality time with each other tending the animals and plants as we were designed to do (okay, I know that’s simple and I’m ignoring the obvious awesomeness of actually seeing Jesus in glory, but you know, I can dream.)  Happiness for me is being with my family.

A wise man said, “be sure if you join yourself to someone, they see happiness the same way you do.”

Another, “you can’t change someone, they are the only one who can choose to change themselves.”

Remember that you cannot be happy trying to force someone else into a mold you see.  Enjoy them as they are.  (We all have flaws, no one is perfect, and everyone is uniquely different!)  Don’t try to change others, just allow them to be who they are.  (A friend pointed out to me once that no one in the “Pooh-Bear” books “unfriend” Eeyore because he’s gloomy; they accept him as he is.)

When you close your eyes and see happiness, whom do you see with you?  Those are the ones you love.  That is what you treasure.  Cherish time with those who make you happy.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

The Big Wave

What can football have to do with a discussion about Roman-era cultures?

September 8, 2018

The Big Wave

Football season started…

Yes, we watch lots of college football and I have one daughter determined to be a Gator cheerleader for at least one season.

Becky and I are watching Ben-Hur and we start talking about Biblical families and eventually trace back to the origin of the Ishmaelites and Israelites.  Sheik Ilderim is one of Becky’s favorite characters in Ben-Hur and she’s making the case that his culture appears to follow nomadic Jewish teachings.  (This was another hypothetical history, culture, and religion play debate.  I love to make their brains work by asking questions and playing “defense attorney” when they choose to lay a case for something.)

During this discussion, Becky says “well, Ishmaelites are technically all family; sons of Ishmael like Israelites are all sons of Israel.”

I said, you could go to say we are all descendents of  Noah.  She replies with “Adam,” pauses, “oh, yeah, Noah and his family were the only ones living after the big wave.”

And I, with my over-active imagination, get a hilarious mental picture:

I see cartoon water as “wavelets” all lining up and “doing the wave” around the Earth like football fans around a stadium.  Little wavelets rise up on top of each other like cheerleaders in a pyramid as they shout, “we’ve got to cover all those mountains!” There’s a dolphin with flippers up shouting, “roller coaster!”  A few hammerhead sharks try to ride the wave (my Daddy tells a story of surfing into the Savannah River & seeing hammerhead sharks surfing next to him).

I will never think of the Great Flood without hearing Becky’s voice say “big wave” and seeing that mental picture.  (Used to be, when I heard “Noah” and “ark,” my brain replayed the 50s cartoon Noah where everyone is singing and this line always sings through my mind: “I’m Mother Noah, Captain Noah’s wife, I wear the pants aboard this boat, you bet your life.”)  I like the wave-surfing sharks and roller coaster loving dolphin picture better.

Sometimes the over-active imagination of a writer is a strange thing…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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