43 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-30-15”

  3. I am steering clear of the whole New Years Resolution thing. I mean, if you want to make a change in your life, make it when you decide to make the change.
    My question is how do you celebrate New Years? Do you do something special or go out on New Year’s Eve? Do you eat something special New Year’s Day.

    I have NEVER, not even once had a good time going out on New Years Eve. The first time I was old enough, I got up the next morning to have my dad tell me my cat had died. It went downhill from there. I also tend to think it is Amateur Night. People drink who have no business being on the road. A drunk driver can’t hit me if I am home safely tucked in my bed. That being said, I could participate in a class reunion event tomorrow night, in town if I want. I am torn. I would like to go, but see the first part of my paragraph for why I probably won’t.

    New Year’s Day Meal; what do you serve?
    I am thing pork roast (Boston Butt)
    Black Eyed Peas (Luck)
    Cabbage/Turnip Greens (Money)
    Corn Bread

    So what are you doing?

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  4. Good morning, fellow wanderers! I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas!

    QOD: We stay home on NYE. In the early years of our marriage, we attended a family NYE party, given by one of Scott’s longtime friends. But, they stopped hosting it about five years ago…and by then, it just seemed easier to stay home.
    On NY Day, we always have black-eyed peas.

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  5. Black-eyes peas are on my list of “I’m an adult now, and I don’t have to eat them.” Of course, I’ve ever actually been offered black-eyes peas as an adult, and who knows but I might like them now. (I’d try a couple if offered them.) But my husband won’t eat anything with “peas” in the name, even sugar snap peas (which, everyone assures him, are not peas).

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  6. As to the question: If I’m invited to a party, I often attend. But this will be my fifth New Year’s here, and no parties. We do tend to stay up till midnight, watch the ball drop (this is my first state in the Eastern time zone), and drink champagne. And we have to do that this year, since our youngest is happy she gets to have champagne, not sparkling juice, this year.

    Eight years in Nashville, one party, including my first champagne (the best I’ve ever had).

    Fourteen years in Chicago, and my church varied on whether it had an event, and whether it went till midnight. In Chicago, one was either home well before midnight or stayed out till well after, avoiding the half hour to hour before and after (live bullets fired into the air were part of celebrations there). NYE 1999/2000 I went to a party, but with a prior arrangement that I could spend the night on the couch rather than driving through whatever Y2K madness threw our way. Most other years I chose the “be home well before midnight” route if I went out at all.

    And that takes me back to Phoenix, where I pretty much only attended Watch Night services or nothing. My oldest brother started having parties on that night before I left for college, just the last couple of years, and I was sorry to be moving away from them . . . though my sister, who stayed in Phoenix longer, doesn’t remember him having them. (And he has been out of Phoenix more than 20 years himself, ever since then the seven of us living in seven states and not gathering en masse for any holiday.)

    I do remember as a teenager sometimes writing in my diary at midnight, thinking it was cool to be writing a page that was written in two different years. I’ve rarely made resolutions, never had a special meal or any other particular traditions.

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  7. Elvera and I used to go to watch night services at Sandy Run BC. (Now FBC Gaston, SC). a friend was preacher there. We attended one at Travis Ave. BC in Fort Worth.
    It wasn’t the same.
    We now have a tradition of going to bed one year and awakening another.

    We are invited to a party at the home of one of our super rich SS members. But we aren’t going.
    !. We really aren’t party people.
    2. Most important. I have a hard time finding her house during the day time. She doesn’t have and address for GPS.
    3. We’re supposed to be there at 6:00. That’s four hours ’till 2018. I can’t be nice that long.
    4. They won’t miss us.
    5 Not as important. There are likely to be drunks on the road. But I have dealt with that before. This doesn’t keep me from going. But it’s something.

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  9. QOD: When we had fledglings in the nest we usually had their friends over for movies and/or games. Then, when it was just D3, if she had nowhere to go we would watch movies until 11, then watch the ball drop in New York. This year Mrs L and I will just let the New Year start without us.

    Spanish tradition: At the first bell stroke of midnight, start eating grapes and get to 12 of them before the last stroke. It is supposed to bring good luck for the coming year.

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  11. I didn’t read the whole article. But an article in today’s Times-News “A list of 2015’s ludicrousness”. by George Will.

    He sums it up in the end. “The common thread in this collapse of judgment in, and the infantilization of society by government. Happy New Year.

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  13. The last New Year party was several years ago. A lady in our community held a new year party just before leaving for Florida. She had a “tape?) of Johnny Carson programs in her TV. That is the only time I have seen a late night show.

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  14. Gosh, I’ve done different things through the years, I guess.

    In high school, a few of my neighborhood girlfriends would come usually to our house and we’d yell “happy new year” out the tiny peep hole “door” that opened at the top of our front door.

    Later, in college, there were real parties to go to; I attended a night watch service one year at a largely Latino Assemblies of God church (with bonfires in the trash cans outside); later, there were just quiet (early) dinners out with a girlfriend or two at a decent restaurant.

    In 2000 we went to the port’s big celebration where there was supposed to be a giant drum circle with 2,000 drummers (there were maybe 30-40). Lots of security and some weird weather that year, dry winds. That was an eerie year.

    Let’s face it, New Year’s Eve is just never as much fun as it’s built up to be — and it’s all pretty contrived “fun” that somehow left me feeling let down. Nowadays I tend to go to bed before midnight, I’m a total party-pooper. 🙂

    Sometimes now I’ll get together with a friend on New Year’s Day which I think is more fun really — for a drive along the coast or a walk with the dogs on the cliffs. Growing up, New Year’s Day was always dreaded as a work day because it was the day when we took down all the Christmas decorations. It really pretty much ruined it. 🙂

    And, of course, there’s lots of football and parades to watch on Jan. 1, though I tend not to watch much of any of that.

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  15. I remember being out all night one year with a girlfriend (this was college, or immediately post-college). She knew of several parties going on so we traveled to a few of them, all night long, and wound up having breakfast out at an all-night diner at the beach.

    Again, lots of build up, but, really, not all that much fun when you got down to it. I was really just tired by the end of it all! But I can say I’ve ‘been there, done that.’

    Loved Johnny Carson back in the day, went to a couple of the show tapings as a teenager with a friend. He was the master.

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  16. We don’t do anything special New Year’s Eve. Maybe stay up, maybe not. (My husband always stays up, but he does that every night. If he goes to bed at what I consider a reasonable time, he wakes up in the middle of the night and has trouble getting back to sleep.)

    When I was a teenager I went to Watch Night services at church, because at that church that’s what you did – if there was a service, you went (at least if you were a “faithful” Christian). Except one year I accepted a babysitting assignment so the parents could go to the service. They had four kids, and it was terrible. None of them listened to me, and I was afraid I wouldn’t have them all to bed before the parents came home. I never babysat them again.

    One memorable New Year’s Eve the year I was studying in Spain, and was traveling over holiday break. I was in Germany for New Year’s, staying at the YWCA. But they had a 10 pm curfew, and I wanted to go to the Watch Night service at the (English-speaking) Baptist church on the US base (I had found it in the phone book, I think). So I switched to a hotel, where there was no curfew, and attended the service, then they had a small celebration afterward. I don’t remember anything about the service, it was just nice to have been able to find a group of people who were both believers and people I could converse with (I knew only a few words of German, and generally forgot even those when I actually needed them).

    Another good New Year’s Eve was when the Presbyterian church we belonged to (in Pennsylvania) in the 90’s had a sort of New Year’s “retreat.” Not a service, but a time for individual Bible reading, meditation, and prayer, getting together every one and then for the pastor to guide us into another phase of reflection.

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  17. Hi Pauline! Good to see you. The retreat sounds kind of intriguing and more my style.

    Your memory of the babysitting assignment reminded me of when my girlfriend and I landed baby-sitting gigs with LA Kings members who all would come here from Canada to play the season in the Forum (which was in our home town).

    I filled in for her one day with her family, first time I’d been there, and wound up losing complete control. There were multiple children (I remembered 6, she told me many years later it was only 3). The dog got out so all the kids dashed out to chase the dog through the neighborhood and I ran out chasing the kids …

    Complete and utter chaos. I think I swore them to silence not to ever tell their parents what happened.

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  19. Good Mornin’! Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!!
    When we were kids, we always attended Watchnight services at church….we then would come home, play games and eat snack foods….my parents must have had an abundance of energy back in the day…
    Last year we were invited to the home of a couple from Sunday School for chili and games….it was cold and a bit awkward ( we didn’t know them well)….we were home before midnight 🙂
    In the Pikes Peak region you are expected to stay up and watch the fireworks go off on top of Pikes Peak….when we lived in town, we had a perfect view of the Peak….now that we live in the forest, we would have to drive out of the trees and park alongside the road….we don’t do that. Having said that, it truly is a beautiful sight to behold when the AdAMan club lights the fireworks and the multi colored lights reflect off of the snow on the Peak….

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  21. Son and wife are having a game night at old house we’re invited to. We’ll probably stop in, then come home and either watch a movie or read. I don’t generally make it to midnight.

    Could go to church, could crash an after church party, but seldom, if ever, have. The same bunch get together for an Ode to Cholesterol party than runs most of New Year’s Day which we usually attend for an hour or two.

    This year we probably will drive into San Francisco to pick up Stargazer who IS being young with friends in the big city, so we may just wander around town

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  22. Yay! Pauline’s here! Glad I commented on your blog last night.

    When I was young, my parents sometimes had New Year’s Eve parties for their friends in the neighborhood. Or one of the other neighbors would host the party. I only actually remember bits of two of those, but I’m pretty sure there were more.

    Lee & I might have stayed up until midnight in our earlier married years, but we haven’t done that for a long time. Often, when the girls were young, & both my parents were alive (Dad died Dec. 28, 2004, when the girls were 15 & 12), my parents would have my daughters & my niece spend the night at their house. Lee & I would have a little date at home – a special dinner & a movie, but still be in bed & asleep before midnight.

    On New Year’s Day, we generally just hang out at home, & have Chinese food for an early dinner. One or two years we’ve had Mexican.

    Almost forgot. . .The first two or three years of our marriage, we would get together with a couple & their children, who lived in New Hampshire. (The husband was Lee’s best man at our wedding, & his best friend, until he divorced his wife for another woman.) One year, we met at, & stayed at, a hotel midway between our homes, & that was a lot of fun.

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  23. If the weather holds here, we go out on the beach around midnight and watch the fireworks on the beach and over the water. Last year I was not feeling good s I did not do it then. When at home we stay in usually. I think I’m my twenties I had one date where I went out for drinks and a kiss at midnight, but it was nothing memorable except for a let down feeling of, “Is that all there is?” I had always thought it was suppose to be a big deal to be out partying then but it was nothing special to me. I have never been big on partying with alcohol even when I did drink long ago.

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  24. We do tend to have some sparkling apple cider with our meal on New Year’s Eve. Not sure what we will have then or on the following day. Choices are pork chops, spaghetti, pizza, stir fry. Don’t have peas but would enjoy some.

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  25. Just saw that the Northern Lights are expected to dip into Oregon on New Year’s Eve. I’ve never seen them and they’re on my bucket list.

    I just sent the link to my husband with the suggestion we spend New Years with our Navy friends in Seattle.

    A pipe dream, I know, but sometimes he’s willing to go along with my hare-brained schemes!

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  26. We don’t usually do anything much on NY’s eve. We have celebrated the New Year on Newfoundland time (9:30 our time) and then we can go to bed whenever we feel like it 🙂

    This year we will go the the Kadesh New Year’s party (which is really a 3 day staff retreat at Camp Kadesh) but will likely not stay very late as they are all young people and we’re old 🙂

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  30. I don’t generally do New Years resolutions, but often I use the New Year as a reminder to sharpen up my spiritual life if I have gotten lazy. In general I agree that when you need to change something, you should just do it. I’m a member of Spark People.com which is a support site for weight loss and as you can imagine people are joining in droves announcing their intention to change their health habits on January 1. Those of us who are already changing our lifestyles are all responding, why not start today?

    As far as celebrations, most years I have gone to the church watch night service. I thought it was a sad excuse for a watch night service when it was over by 9:30 pm. I understand that better now! Here in The Gambia the missionaries often have a bonfire . This year however, I am the only missionary left on the missionary compound with one other missionary in the village. The others are in the capital for a few days while the clinic is closed. So…I will probably just go to bed. I might pull out all the stops and watch a video and go to bed!

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  31. QoD: We seem to have started a new tradition. Youngest sibling and spouse rent the top floor of a house used by the church, and there are large rooms on the bottom floor that we can use for family gatherings if nothing is going on with the church. So, last year and this year again, the family members will gather for a game and food night. It wraps up early enough, as there are lots of little ones that need to go to sleep.

    In previous years, we have had some family and friends over for finger foods and fun. Some years, we tried to do a puzzle before midnight or went skating on the frozen swamp in the moonlight. When we were teens and young adults, we would stay up to midnight, but with many children who will get up at seven o’clock the next morning no matter how late they went to bed, that has been discontinued.

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  32. Husband and sons and son and daughter in law to be were here for a couple of days. They are headed back to daughter’s New Year’s party. So, it will just be the five of us. We will probably play games as usual and they will go to bed as usual and I will go to bed as usual and the new year will come along as usual.

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  33. My friend G is flying home this afternoon. His stepfather died Sunday and the funeral will be in Mobile on Monday. As I mentioned earlier, I have the class reunion event to go to. He has agreed to be my fake date if he can get his mother settled. Mr. P just can’t stand and walk that long.

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  34. I don’t do resolutions. I have always found it silly to wait until New Years Day to change anything I want to change.

    We will probably stay home and do nothing except watch the TV specials and read or play games.

    We used to go out, listen to good live music and dance. Live music is not as prevalent today.

    Also, we can often have -10 to -20 or colder on New Years Eve. It is not really fun to be out and about. Definitely for the young and energetic.

    We have two family birthdays between New Years and Christmas, so we usually ended up entertaining. I may have done it on New Years, but it wasn’t the norm.

    We have also gone to church events. Our church moved those to New Years Day, because of the concern of drunk drivers being out and about.

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  36. Kim is right. New Year’s Eve is amateur hour. Stay home or attend a house party. The one year I was convinced to go out to a club, I was miserable the entire time — bad music/dj, fights, crying girls, etc. In many cases, the drama was all the result of people trying too hard to have a memorable night mixed with a higher than usual alcohol intake.

    Some people know how to drink and others don’t. Both groups should recognize what category they belong in and act accordingly.

    I have two invites to house parties. One is walking distance but I would definitely be the oldest. The other is a group of friends of various ages and a really comfortable couch to stay the night.

    Never understood New Year’s resolutions — one should make commitments when necessary no matter what the calendar.

    In all cases, people should enjoy the New Year Even and the morning after.

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  37. I haven’t been to a watch night service since the one in Ft. Worth.
    What happens is that the church gathers about 9:00 or thereabouts. There would be singing, special music, praying and the pastor would bring a short message as time drew near.
    They would arrange to have everyone praying the new year in. A couple of more songs and we went home. Or to whatever else you have planned.
    Elvera and I were courting each other at that time. 🙂

    A good watch night service take lots of work.

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  38. Some watch night services I’ve attended had communion right at midnight. Others praying. I think for a lot of people it’s an excuse to be out at midnight and not around alcohol (unless there is wine for communion, but that is different).

    Welcome back, Pauline! Much snow up your way or did you just get the rain and sleet?

    Mumsee- Yes, we are on high ground. The river has crested is beginning to go down. The news says that the St. Louis area may have higher water than the 1993 flood. Of course, they get all the water from the Missouri and Illinois rivers, which are also at flood levels.

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  39. New Year’s Eve (and day) also is a good time to go to the movies. I’ve done that in the past as well. There are usually a lot of big releases around Christmas and the lines are usually shorter by New Year’s.

    As for resolutions — it’s not so much “waiting” until the new year to make changes, but it’s simply a natural time for many to reflect a bit, especially on their spiritual walk. And in making changes, it also has the advantage of having others who are doing the same thing so there are some helpful articles, etc. — it just seems like a fresh start for a lot of people and so looking at what one might do better in the coming year is natural I think.

    But I never put off anything I feel I need to do just because it’s not Jan. 1 yet — a couple months ago I got back to eating healthy & am still doing it. Waiting until new year would have been silly, it was something I was motivated (and knew I needed) to do in October (or whenever it was).

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  40. Not a lot of snow, Peter L. Probably about two to three inches. It was the sleet that was nasty. I canceled my appointment to take my car in to the dealer, my husband canceled his dentist appointment, and we just stayed in all day Monday. Yesterday we got the cars cleared off so Jon and Zach could go to work, and I could go shopping. I made the mistake of opening my trunk to put the groceries in there, and a bunch of snowy ice that had been on top of the trunk slid off into the trunk. Then after I scooped most of it out, I couldn’t close the trunk because there was more ice blocking it from closing. So I raised the trunk lid higher to move it and of course it all slid into the trunk.

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  41. I agree about not waiting until Jan.1 to change something. So I only waited until Dec. 30 to go to the Y. Actually, I had planned on getting started back there this week when I have plenty of time (college is closed until Monday), and I was going to go Monday but the weather nixed that. So I went today. But I can’t go again Friday because it will be closed, so I guess I’ll shoot for Saturday.

    Speaking of shooting, my husband recently bought a pistol for home protection. I’m not real keen on it but since we have it I need to know how to use it, so I went with him twice to the shooting range to try different guns before buying one. I really don’t enjoy it and I’m so glad when there are no bullets left in the gun to shoot. But I shoot well – last time the center of the target was pretty well shot up. Of course it takes me so long to aim to get it so accurate that it wouldn’t help much in a situation where I really needed to use it. (I had taken a gun safety class years ago, and the teacher said if you weren’t prepared to use the gun to kill someone when the need arose, it was better not to have it. So I was quite happy not to have one. Despite having been a rape victim when I was in my 20’s and having wondered many times what I would do if I had a gun in such a situation, I’m not at all sure what I’d actually do.)

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