Sunday, November 27, 2011

A short holiday and looong hours

Any more, I don't feel like I have very much in the way of free time. We are understaffed at work, so we have to work a lot.

On Monday and Wednesday I worked until 5:00 and on Tuesday I worked until 6:00. I can't remember what I did when I got home on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, I was super excited the next day was Thanksgiving. I finished a family history indexing batch that night.

Thanksgiving was enjoyable; we went to my grandparents' house. That evening I ate way too much pie and I was excited to see that a Peanuts special that came out on DVD in March, Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, finally aired on TV--which meant I was able to watch it without buying it. Some of you may recall that before my mission I was big on a site called TV.com. I'm not so big on it now, but I am the editor for the Charlie Brown specials on that site, so I added information to the guide for Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown.

I had to be at work at 6:00 a.m. on Friday. I was scheduled until 12. Once 12:00 hit, I asked if I could go. They told me I could, but that I could also stick around. I decided to leave. I went to the temple with my parents.

I had to work Saturday, as well. Then Saturday afternoon I wanted to go running. But all my work prevents me from running and I'm losing my ability. I wanted to run for 47 minutes. After sixteen or seventeen minutes, though, I got lazy and I stopped. I don't know if I was just lazy or if I was more tired than I used to be. So I turned around, walked for about three minutes, and then ran the rest of the way for about seventeen minutes. So it was a failure run for me. But I have some consolation. One is that my ability is bound to decrease as I do it less and get more out of shape. Another is that what I ran will keep me in better shape than not running at all. And another consolation is that even the seventeen minutes one way is still better than what I could do four years ago.

My free time last night was taken up because today I gave a talk in my ward. I never read my talks verbatim, but this is approximately what I said:

First of all, I would like to point out that 364 days ago, on November 28, 2010, I stood at this very pulpit at this very time in the Orchard 14th Ward. There aren't very many similarities between last year and this year. Last year it was very snowy, and I was hoping church would be canceled so I wouldn't have to speak. There's no chance of that today. The ward was also much smaller; there are a lot more people today. I can't decide if more people makes it more or less intimidating.

Shortly after general conference in October, at institute we had a big discussion about things we enjoyed about conference. I shared that I liked President Uchtdorf's talk, “You Matter to Him.” I especially liked the beginning where he talked about the stars in the sky. He talks about how God showed Moses the workmanship of his hands, and Moses said, “I know that man is nothing.” President Uchtdorf says, “The more we learn about the universe, the more we understand—at least in a small part—what Moses knew. The universe is so large, mysterious, and glorious that it is incomprehensible to the human mind. 'Worlds without number have I created,' God said to Moses. The wonders of the night sky are a beautiful testimony of that truth."

He continues and talks about how “one group of scientists estimates that the number of stars within range of our telescopes is 10 times greater than all the grains of sand on the world's beaches and deserts.” He has this perspective being a pilot, flying over Earth looking at the night sky.

I'm not a pilot, and I'm not an astronomer. I find this concept fascinating, but it's not something I can totally relate to. However, at BYU, I'm doing a minor in geology. I'm not very far in this minor, but I think this same concept can be approached from a geological perspective.

Sometimes when I'm down by the train tracks on Center Street, I look up at our hill, and I see all the houses. There are so many houses, yet they don't come even close to filling up the entire hill. And then there's another hill behind it! They're so big—but then I realize that our hills right here are actually rather small compared to other mountains, even in our own state. I think about how many hills and mountains there are all over this world, and it amazes me to think just how big the world is.

Just as fascinating as the size of the earth is its age. Once I did the math—I must have been bored-- and I determined that if you were to draw a line in which one inch equals 1,000 years—now think about how much has happened in a thousand years—with one inch equaling a thousand years, from now to the time that the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, the line would be over a mile long! And that's just to the time that the dinosaurs went extinct—I didn't do the math for the time that they lived, or for time before them, or anything like that. This boggles my mind!

Our human history is only a few inches in the miles of the earth's history. It can be easy to feel insignificant when you think about this. But I like to think of it this way. We know from Moses 1:39 that God's work and glory is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. That is why He created this earth. And yet the earth was around for billions of years before he formed man on it. We matter so much to Him that He created this world so beautifully, perfectly, and meticulously just for us.

President Uchtdorf uses this concept of the grandeur of the universe to warn us against a couple of tools of the adversary. President Uchtdorf says, "This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast." Satan uses both sides of this paradox. One of these diabolical tools is pride. He leads some—and, I might add, all of us to some degree—to think that they are more important or more valuable than everyone else. We must really remember, though, that our individual time spent on this earth is only a fraction of an inch in the miles and miles of eternity. President Uchtdorf says, “Those who will 'inherit the kingdom of God' are those who become 'as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love.' 'For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.' Such disciples understand also “that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.'

On the opposite end, Satan uses discouragement. He convinces us that we are small, insignificant, and forgotten. But this is not true. We matter to God. President Ucthdorf says, “The Lord doesn’t care at all if we spend our days working in marble halls or stable stalls. He knows where we are, no matter how humble our circumstances. He will use—in His own way and for His holy purposes—those who incline their hearts to Him.

There's a scripture I really like in 1 Corinthians 12:14-23:

"14 For the body is not one member, but many.

15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?

20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.

21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:

23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness."

I really like this analogy. If, for example, our body consisted of nothing but ears, we would be useless. We need all the members of our body. So it is in the Church. We can't all be bishops and Relief Society presidents. We each have our own unique abilities to contribute, and we may think our calling or our role in our ward is insignificant, but it matters not only to God, but to everyone else in the Church.

President Ucthdorf says, “God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season”--I find it interesting he calls this a small planet—I've been telling you how big it is, but it really is tiny--"He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him."

I know that we may be less than a millimeter in the miles of eternity, and we are little specks of dust in the vastness of the universe, but we matter to Him. God loves us, and gave us His Son because He wants us to return to Him. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


(And I'm sorry for the inconsistent font size. I just didn't care enough to make it all the same.)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

A pointless post

Today I planned to write a thanksgiving blog. That's thanksgiving with a lower-case t, but I was going to write it because of Thanksgiving with a capital T.

But between sleeping late, having a "linger longer" after church, having home teachers over, attending a fireside with Sheri Dew and Jon Schmidt, and my guidelines on not being online after 9:00, I wouldn't have time to do it justice. So we'll see if it happens this week.

We are very busy at work. This is the second week in a row where I've worked six days a week, and supposedly we're working every Saturday for the rest of the year. I'm going to be rich. One of my leads told me this week that within a two-week period I worked 92 hours. And this is a part-time job! What I inferred from what he told me was that I worked more than anyone else. That's one advantage to having no life--I get a lot of money!

They gave us day crew Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday. Hurray! And then Thursday I stayed late enough that I got a second one with the swing shift. Hurray! But the second one made me mad. Some imbecile turned on Christmas music. Thanksgiving does not equal Christmas. Whoever decided on the music should be shot! Or at least fired. It's one thing to listen to it yourself, but to subject everyone else to it! It's like turning on rap music--you know a lot of the people aren't going to like it.

Umm...yeah. I'm not going to write anything good in two minutes. Sorry this is a pointless blog. I just want to maintain my record of not missing a single Sunday since I started the blog.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Eight votes is seven too many

This week was Election Day, but I didn't vote. It wasn't a very big election and I worked late on Tuesday. I also didn't know much about the candidates. Our local paper, the Davis County Clipper, had little blips from the different candidates. None of them really sounded too much better than the others; they all sounded fine.

Except for one.

There was one entry for an old woman who looked nice and friendly. Her opening paragraph read,

"Friends: I proposed a library and lower taxes for North Salt Lake. Vote for me: Write-in my name: Reva Wadsworth."

So, she sounds like an all right candidate; I might vote for her.

But then I continued. What follows is the rest of her entry, with commentary by yours truly. I assure you, I'm not making any of this up.

"Seek life, liberty, and happiness."
OK, you're paraphrasing Jefferson. You're still off to a good start.

"Life: Brush mind and body daily, Pray always!"
Whoa. Suddenly you've changed directions, and you're losing credibility. I know what brushing your teeth and brushing your hair are--but what exactly does it mean to brush your body? But even more confusing--what on earth does it mean to brush your mind!? And did you mean to put a period instead of a comma? Because praying always does not exactly fit with the rest of the sentence, and while praying is a good thing and you pray to capital H-I-M, you don't need to capitalize pray. I also don't think it's exactly fitting with running for a city office. It's obvious the group you're trying to get to vote for you.

Furthermore,with the way you format your sentence with life at the beginning, I would think you would have similar sentences starting with liberty and happiness followed by a colon, as your opening sentence would suggest. You do use the words, but the parallel structure is lost by abandoning the colon.

"Drink water, avoid milk products, rancid oils, sugars, excess flour, all drugs."
I could talk about the grammatical structure here, but that's the least of the problems. What is wrong with milk products? Did you never read the Food Pyramid? I would think even non-rancid oils are worse for you than milk products. And why are you telling people to avoid all drugs? Marijuana, meth, alcohol--yes, but what about prescription drugs? Have you ever met someone who is certifiably crazy who goes off their medication? (Maybe this explains you...)

"Transporting, selling, gifting drugs promises penalty by law."
I agree here that this should be the case, but unfortunately it doesn't always work out this way--you have to get caught, and you have to get caught by someone who thinks it's worth the trouble.

"Liberty is prudence, moderation, frugality!"
The way you list things like this reminds me of Ophelia Frump, Morticia's sister on The Addams Family.


"Avoid poisonous sprays, debts, credit, contracts, zoning, unions!"
One of these things is not like the other--what do poisonous sprays have to do with the rest of it?

"Beware of tolerance, without cause, breeding begging, blushing, unworthiness."
Did you really just say, "Beware of tolerance"? I think of tolerance as a good thing. Maybe you meant "tolerance without cause," and you put an extraneous comma in there; we've already seen how good you are at punctuation. But that still doesn't make too much sense. And what on earth is "breeding begging"? Once again, maybe your punctuation is messed up and you mean "breeding COMMA begging." But if so, breeding is a weird thing to mention in a list of things to beware. What's wrong with blushing? Are you trying to be alliterative? People like you should NOT attempt poetry.

"Read: therein, work, find wealth!"
I can't decide if you're saying that you work and find wealth by reading , or if you're trying to tell us to read into what you've just said, and that the advice you've given in preceding sentences allows us to work and find wealth. Either way, it doesn't make any sense.

"Be prepared!"
Thank you, Mrs. Boy Scout.

"Happiness is doing unto others as you would have them do unto you."
No argument here.

"Repent!"
Now you're sounding like the bearded, robed man standing on the street corner with a sign proclaiming, "The end is near!"

"Forgive, share, care, guard and protect private property."
Once again, one of these things is not like the other. What does protecting private property have to do with forgiving, sharing, and caring?

"After all, Families are forever!"
What do you mean, "after all"? What does this have to do with anything you've said, and what does it have to do with voting for you for city council? Families are wonderful and eternal, but they don't need a capital letter.

"There-in, I can serve you."
This is the second time you've used the word therein, and once you used a hyphen and once you didn't. It seems to me you're throwing this word around to try to sound smart, even though you don't know what it means. You haven't told us anything in this entire paragraph about how you'll serve us--not once! All you've done is set down a list of poorly-written and sometimes bad advice.

"Thanks."
Well, reading your blip was a few seconds of my life I'll never get back.

On Wednesday, the Deseret News printed results from all the elections. Reva E. Wadsworth only got eight votes. For the sake of humanity, I hope these were all family members and very, very close friends.

I'm sure she's a sweet lady. But she has no business on a city council.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The REAL most wonderful time of the year

I can't believe Halloween was only a week ago. It seems a lot longer to me. I had to work. But they provided donuts for us, some of which had orange and black sprinkles on them, so I was allowed to eat them. I went trick-or-treating with Allie, dressed in my vampiric costume from my 5k. I went up to doors with her at first, while Nan and Matt waited, but eventually she was fine going up by herself. It was one of the warmest Halloweens I remember--I was comfortable in my shorts.

Maybe the reason Halloween seems so long ago is because I worked so much this week. I don't think I ever got off before 4:00, starting at 7:00 a.m. every day. Part of this is because they never posted a schedule, so I just worked until they told me to leave. But they really needed all the help they could get. Sadly, all this work, along with Saturday's snow, meant that I didn't get to go running once this week.

On Tuesday, during my lunch break I went to a nearby place called Port of Subs. I got a sandwich called the Pilgrim Griller, which I only knew about because I decided to try Port of Subs a few weeks ago. It's turkey, cheese, stuffing, and cranberry sauce on a sandwich. The combination of me being hungry and it being a novelty left me very satisfied. Then I drove back to work, while the mountain ahead of me had a dusting of snow, and my CD playing a song from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I was so happy. This is my favorite time of year.

I don't know what it is about Thanksgiving, but I just love it so much. The temperatures are cool, but not completely cold yet (usually). There's a certain bareness--the Halloween decorations are gone, but the Christmas ones aren't up yet (usually), and the leaves are significantly reduced but there's not much in the way of snow (usually). Then there's the day itself--everyone's off school and work (usually), and it's just a nice relaxing day (usually). I just love it.

This week I got all of our inside Thanksgiving decorations up, but the snow put a damper on putting up the outside stuff (my inflatable turkey and my pilgrim lights). On Thursday night I went to the store, and they had a big bag of bulk candy corn taffy they were trying to get rid of, as well as candy corn Dots. I bought these. (Oddly enough, there wasn't any candy corn.) Yesterday (Saturday) I made spiced apple cider with cinnamon and cloves. (Once you've had this, you'll never go back to that stupid powder stuff.) I added my Thanksgiving music to my playlist, consisting of recordings of hymns 91-95 and music from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

I usually like snow, but I'm not sure what to think of it this time. My biggest fear is that it will get people thinking about Christmas. Consider the following:
  • When I went to Winegar's grocery store (where I bought all the candy), as I pulled up, there was a big banner saying "Happy Thanksgiving" on the front of the store. But once I went inside, I found out they were just a whited sepulchre with all manner of uncleanness inside, in the form of wreaths, garlands, and nutcrackers. It would have been more tolerable if it were just in the seasonal aisle, but no, this was the case at customer service, the deli, and the meat department.
  • Christmas commercials have started.
  • In my last post, the one about Thanksgiving memories, most of the years are tied to Christmas in some way, and most of that is against my wishes.
  • When I got in the car yesterday, the music my mom--my very own mother!--had been listening to came on, and I was subjected, if only briefly, to strains of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing, "Still, Still, Still."
I would like to remind everyone that Thanksgiving is the next holiday. NOT Christmas. Today at church there were two testimonies lambasting premature Christmas music. Hooray for testimonies! There has been a picture circulating of a turkey yelling at Santa Claus: "December, fat boy! This month is for MY holiday! Now hop in that sleigh and wait your turn!" I agree with this, except for one thing. Christmas is the aggressive holiday, not Thanksgiving.

Please don't misunderstand. I love Christmas. But "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). So if you put up your Christmas tree or listen to yule music before Thanksgiving, you are disobeying the Bible.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Remember Every Detail, Volume 3: Thanksgiving

I have amused myself, my mom, and my cousins by recounting every detail possible from all the memories I have of the Halloweens and Fourth of Julys of my life. It is now that time of year where I write down every detail I can remember about the fourth Thursday of November. As with my other holiday posts, I am only doing Thanksgiving Day itself--you won't find a solitary Wednesday or Friday listed.

2010--My niece Allie had spent the night at our house. As part of my scripture study that morning I was playing the Thanksgiving hymns (91-95) on the piano. She asked me if I was playing Thanksgiving songs. She said she thought there were some in the Children's Songbook, but I said there weren't. I think sometime that morning I also attempted to play Vince Guaraldi's "Thanksgiving Theme" from my Peanuts songbook. We watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and when it was over, Allie wanted to watch the other special on the DVD, "The Mayflower Voyagers." She took a bath, and when she got out she told me, "I was so selfish in the tub," and then said something that had absolutely nothing to do with being selfish. I asked her how that made her selfish. She said something like "'Cause I flipped my head back." I remember remarking to my mom that I didn't think she knew what selfish meant! A little later I found her sitting at the piano, with my Peanuts book open to the song "Christmas is Coming." I asked her what she was doing, since I knew she couldn't play it or read music and probably didn't even know the song. Then we carried pies out to the car, and I remember hoping I didn't slip on the ice while I was carrying them. It was a very cold Thanksgiving. As we were driving to my grandparents' house on I-15, my mom said we should sing "Over the River and Through the Woods." We sang it, and then the conversation turned to how "Jingle Bells" was originally written as a Thanksgiving song. So we sang "Jingle Bells." My sister and her husband met us at my grandparents' house. We were standing in the kitchen and I told her about Allie's selfish remark, and she laughed. My aunt Debbie and her daughter Renee arrived, and Debbie pointed me out to Renee, since she hadn't seen me since I'd been home from my mission, and she was surprised. When it was time for dinner, I ended up sitting away from the rest of my immediate family, at the table in the kitchen instead of the table in the living room. I think my aunt Sue was the one closest to me. I think there were also introductions about my cousin's girlfriend Lisa and my brother-in-law Matt. After dinner, Renee was talking to me about how she was trying to quit smoking, and there was some mention of the Stop Smoking Workshop, which I was familiar with from my mission. [Rhiannon talked a lot about Justin Bieber. My mom had pictures of Allie she was giving out. Debbie took one (I think to be polite), and said she'd show it to Brennon.] Then later these Gildersleeves were leaving, and I said "Bye Max!" to Renee's son. He asked how I knew his name. On our way home, my dad honked at a motor home that nearly cut us off. That night I wanted to tidy up some in my dad's work room, but I got distracted when I saw the cabinet full of old issues of Consumer Reports. I pulled them out to read the back page, the only entertaining part of the whole magazine. There was one that was a picture of a box of candy canes, describing the flavors as things such as "watermelon," "lemon," and "green." Another one was an ad for a product with pictures of birds. It said that a particular bird was the state bird of "over 75 U.S. states."

2009--That morning I made some spiced cider before the other elders, Elder Canova and Elder Robinson, came to pick us up to do grocery shopping. When they called to tell us they had arrived, we invited them in for some cider. The car needed to be filled up, so we dropped off Elder Tamblyn and Elder Canova at Rosauer's grocery store while Elder Robinson and I went to the gas station across the street, since I was going home in four days and Elder Robinson expected to be transferred. After we were done we went to Rosauer's parking lot. I remarked about going inside to meet up with them, but Elder Robinson objected because he didn't like the idea of being around so many people. So we talked about missionaries--about district leaders being domineering and judgmental, about one Elder Pulver who had nagged me the whole time I was on exchanges with him (and Elder Robinson said that Elder Pulver had told him it was because he was stressed and getting all the nagging from his trainer, Elder Hinebaugh), and about my evil companion Elder LaPratt, who had played a prank on me by changing our entry for the mission president to his number, so he could call and pretend to be President Palmer. When I told this story Elder Robinson made a comment I didn't find offensive, then apologized for his language. But since I'm sheltered, what he said might have been offensive and I just don't know it, so I won't repeat it. Then our district went to the Robinsons', a family in our ward, for Thanksgiving dinner, since Elder Robinson's father and our Brother Robinson were cousins. One Robinson relative was telling us about how in his mission the elders would determine their ties' length by how much longer they had on their mission--the longer the tie, the longer the time left. Somehow this led to them saying that my tie would be really short. We were playing the game Bang!--as we usually did on P-days--and Elder Masten made some gay remark, and Sister Robinson cautioned him, since one of the relatives present was gay. Later that day Elder Tamblyn and I went to Bishop Palmer's house. Other people there were the Bartschis, whom we had had dinner with earlier in the week, and the Smiths, who lived out of town. I had some pie, since I had told the bishop and his wife I wanted pecan pie (but they were going to have it anyway), but Elder Tamblyn didn't have any since he had chronic stomach problems and we still had another dinner to go to. Sister Smith asked if Elder Tamblyn was the elder who had lost all the weight, but we explained it was me. Then we went to dinner with Michael Piquet and his family--his future wife Amy, and their kids Nash and Laren. After the actual meal Amy told us we didn't have a choice not to eat the pumpkin pie she'd made. After we were done eating I pulled out my scriptures and found the scripture in Proverbs about the full soul loathing every sweet thing. Since it was my last time there, we took pictures:
After we got home, we had our "landlord," Mr. Littlejohn, fix our heater. I pulled out the cider I had made earlier. Elder Tamblyn said he had been praying hard at the Piquets' that his stomach would last. We were supposed to be planning that night. I looked through the area book to make sure all was clean before I left. Elder Tamblyn was getting annoyed that I told him the decisions were up to him for the next week, since I wouldn't be there. Then he went to bed because he wasn't feeling well.

2008--That morning Elder Love and I stayed in our pajamas for study. Our companion study was Thanksgiving. After study we were permitted to do what we wanted. I made spiced cider, and he made cinnamon "rolls" from a can. I took pine-like branches from a service project a week earlier to attempt to make a wreath, since the Christmas season started the next day, and I didn't know when else I would be able to do it. It didn't work out too well; the branches were loosely tied together, but mainly just pinned to the wall, like this:Elder Love pulled out some small ornaments he said we would be able to put on them, but we never did. While Elder Love was taking a shower, I turned on my Hymns CDs to listen to the Thanksgiving hymns. I did 250 situps--two sets of 100 and one of 50--thus clearing a queue of situps I needed to do for a year and a half. I wanted to take a bath, since we had time that morning, but the water ended up being too cold. Then we went to dinner at the Galbreaths', who live a mile or two out of Ritzville. This was Dale Galbreath's home, but both of his Ritzville sons were there, Daniel, the branch president, and John, another member of the branch. They also had some friends there from the Colville stake. Sister Galbreath had a very strange squash decoration. Before dinner we sat in their living room and went around to say what we were thankful for. We all got a good laugh when it was John Galbreath's three-year-old daughter Taylor's turn. I remember her saying she was thankful for her dad, but she was climbing all over the chair while she was saying what she was thankful for. The dinner included some pickles that a member of the branch, Rexa Moffett, had made. They were very green. Sister Galbreath said they were good for Christmas, and I said they were also good for St. Patrick's Day. Elder Love showed a promotional video we had advertising a "Nativities from Around the World" event in Spokane, and the Colville members seemed intrigued, but I think the Colville stake did their own, separate from that of the five Spokane stakes. Then we drove back to Ritzville, and I remember seeing at one of the houses out in the country the "Smoking Bus," a peculiar vehicle we had noticed in town that had the words "Nicotine Express" written on the side. Then we went to a recent convert/part-member family's house for more dinner. The Johnsons had visiting family, such as Denise's mom, who was the nonmember sister of a convert in the Davenport branch, and Denise's dad with his crazy wife. Everyone had already eaten, but Denise's mom talked with us while we ate. I remember there were two versions of one salad, one with shrimp and one without. After dinner we washed dishes, and I didn't know that the thing with holes in it actually stopped the drain; I thought it just strained draining water. Denise's stepmom reproved other members of the family, that we were guests and we were doing dishes. Before we left I asked her if she was related to a Kaylie Stubbs in Spokane, because she looked just like her. Then we went home and had to do our weekly planning at 6:00.

2007--I remember surprisingly little about this Thanksgiving. I wore a red shirt and a turkey tie. I remember being at my grandparents' house, and there being discussion to their friend Scott Grow that I was leaving on my mission the following week. I took my crutches to their house because of my sprained ankle, but at home I discovered I didn't need them anymore. Susanne and Allie put up their Christmas tree in their apartment, but I didn't go see it.

2006--My parents were already in Fillmore because my dad's mom had died a few weeks earlier, so all the kids were going through stuff at the house. I went down there with my sister and Allie, but before we went, we stopped at Winegar's. I remember feeling bad for the people who had to work on Thanksgiving. We were in the cracker aisle to get stuff for the car ride for Allie, and there were some insect-shaped crackers she said her preschool teacher Miss Sue had. So we got those. We took a portable DVD player, and I brought A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,
which I know we watched at some point in the day. My aunt Peggy had brought a chocolate cake, which I thought was weird with all the Thanksgiving pies, but that didn't stop me from having some. I remember it being crowded in the house, so I ate on the swing in the backyard by myself, wearing my BYU hoodie. That day we went through a lot of outdated clothing, such as weird wigs, ghastly glasses, strange scarfs, and extra-somber sunglasses.
I also remember there being something said that the men weren't allowed to look at the bag full of bras. We also did puzzles, and one of the puzzles had pictures of bugs, including a spider. I started singing the line "The spiders think you're very cute" from Corpse Bride, and Allie (who was 3) emphatically said, "The spiders think I'm NOT very cute!" My little cousin Alex (who was 5) said something like "Spiders are gross."

2005--The Deseret News always does a special section on Thanksgiving that lists all of the holiday specials for the next month, as well as a feature article. This year I saw that this section had a big picture of Charlie Brown with his little tree and Violet and Lucy mocking. This picture had a bright red background. The article was commemorating the 40th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I wore my typical red shirt and turkey tie, and David and I took Allie (who was 2) and Preston (who was 1) to Hatch Park (although back then it might have still been called North Salt Lake Park--I can't remember). There was a fair amount of other people there. I remember being near another dad and wondering what he thought of me wearing a tie to the park. When we got home, I remember being impressed that TV Land was actually showing Thanksgiving episodes on Thanksgiving, something they hadn't done before. I know they showed the Thanksgiving episode of Bewitched, but I can't remember if I watched it since I had my own copy. I went to my grandparents' house with my mom. We went before everyone else in our family, and we took Allie with us. I remember telling my mom about the Thanksgiving episodes for the imaginary TV shows I invented. Allie fell asleep in the car, so we took her in and laid her on the reclining love seat thing. Then we set up for dinner, and we moved that seat while Allie was still sleeping on it, and she didn't wake up. After dinner I remember taking her on a walk. I started singing "Augustus Gloop" from the then-new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, which Allie liked. She started singing along. I got to the part that's just instrumental and started humming. She started humming too, only she had no concept of tune, and I found it completely adorable.

2004--We were in Fillmore this year, and we ate at the cabin-like American Legion hall, as we were accustomed. My family went early and we put green coverings on the tables. There weren't that many of our family there. I remember discussing my cousin Angie's singing talent. That evening I helped pull down some Christmas decorations for my grandma, including a very poky tree made out of pine cones and such, and getting a sliver. My uncle and my grandma said that was normal. On our way home we stopped in Provo to pick up David and Ya-ping. I remember sitting outside their apartment in the Suburban, and I was quietly humming the opening theme to the strange pilot episode of The Munsters. My sister heard me at a very strange part of the song, and made fun of me. Then I think once we were home, I ate apple pie ice cream while watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

2003--I wore a red shirt and a red tie (I didn't have a turkey tie yet) and red wool socks. We were in Fillmore, and that morning they took pictures of my grandpa, dad, sister, and niece. I remember my grandparents talking about watching the Macy's parade on TV. My brother turned it on, but it mostly showed performances, and not much of the parade itself. My grandma asked if we were watching the parade, but my brother told her about how they weren't actually showing the parade. We went to the Legion Hall to set up. The city of Fillmore had put up a big Christmassy panel sign that said "Welcome" on it for when Santa would be visiting the following day. It had white Christmas lights sticking through little holes, and some of my little cousins went and pulled them out. So I begrudgingly went and pushed them back in. While I was doing this, my uncle John decided to turn on a CD he found accompanying a stereo on one of the fireplaces. I don't know if it was in it or just next to it. The CD started with a creepy little girl voice doing some scary narration, including talking about little kids in their beds "for fear that the devil would chop off their heads." I found this quite disturbing. The CD was some death metal thing someone had probably left after Halloween. John was also putting out some paper decorations he'd gotten from my grandparents. I objected to him putting out the Halloween ones along with the Thanksgiving ones--I don't think he realized the difference. For some reason we drove back to my grandparents' house with my aunt Michelle, and I wanted to listen to the two Thanksgiving songs on my Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits CD, "Charlie's Blues" and "Thanksgiving Theme." Then we went back to the Legion Hall, where everyone arrived. I hadn't seen my aunt Peggy in a long time and I thought she looked different. I remember my cousin Terrill saying he liked my tie. We all gathered around the "Welcome" sign and took pictures. Someone brought a turkey piñata, which we grandkids tried to break. I remember there being a problem when it came time to take down the rope, which was tied to a beam. They tried to pull on it but it seemed like it was putting a lot of stress on the beam. My cousin Stephen took the head and tail of the piñata, and thus pretended to be a turkey. Peggy insisted on getting everyone together around the piano to sing "Over the River and Through the Woods." As we did so, my little cousins Alex and Sarah were also "playing" the piano, so Rachae, a cousin from a different aunt, took them away from the piano. On our way home, David was shaving in the car. My sister was mad because she thought this was gross; my mom was mad because he didn't bother to shave when we were with family, but now that we had left he shaved.

2002--For some reason we took the van that belonged to my maternal grandparents to go to Fillmore to have Thanksgiving with my paternal grandparents. I don't remember why. We took the Thanksgiving newspaper with us. My sister met us in Fillmore, having gone 90 mph on her way there. This might have been the year I first tried pecan pie. We went with some of my cousins to where their grandparents lived; I don't know why. I saw a family out in their yard decorating for Christmas. They had a giant wreath in their yard--a garland in a circle shape that was as large as a person. We saw a flock of turkeys, which I thought was very fitting for Thanksgiving. When my parents and brother and I went home, a deer ran out in front of us. We barely hit it, and it broke one of the headlights, but ran off. (Keep in mind that this was in my grandparents' van.) I remember remarking that at least we were a perdiddle now for other people.

2001--This was a very snowy Thanksgiving. We brought pies, including coconut cream, to my maternal grandparents' house. I remember my cousin Jesse saying he was thankful there wasn't any school. Then we drove down to Fillmore to visit my other grandparents. Of course they had already eaten, but they pulled out leftovers. I slept in the rumpus room.

2000--We had Thanksgiving in Fillmore at the Legion Hall, as usual. This was a reunion, of sorts, with not only my grandpa's family but also his brother's family; i.e. there were a lot of my dad's cousins and my second cousins present. Someone had set the table with a unique treat by each plate, an ice cream cone with a small bag of Runts inside--intended to be a cornucopia. Apparently they had run out of cones, because some of them were only the tiny cellophane-wrapped Runts, so I made sure I sat at one with the cone. My great-uncle Ross had invited the missionaries to dinner, and cheered when they arrived. I remember when it was time to get food, I was behind them in line. I thought about telling them that my brother had left on his mission just a week earlier, but I thought it might make them jealous that he went to Taiwan and they were in Utah, so I didn't say anything. There was a sort of talent show. I was annoyed at how much of the songs were Christmas songs. One second cousin performed a song he had written. I don't know if he recorded it, but he did have a minus track for it. It was a weird song; it started off with a train whistle. The opening line was "There is nothing quite like a train at Christmas time," and included lyrics about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus riding on the train. Weird. My cousins Krishelle and Rayce sang that medley of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and "Pine Cones and Holly Berries." All this Christmas didn't sit well with me, so I started thinking, Maybe I could create a Thanksgiving song and sing it. So I started concocting a spoof on "Jingle Bells," the lyrics of which included "Dashing through the leaves...To the house with lots of eaves, We are on our way!...Oh, rattle gourds, rattle gourds, rattle all the way," and something about "red and yellow Fords." (I could have been more at ease if I had known "Jingle Bells" was originally written as a Thanksgiving song.) I told my mom about singing, but she discouraged me. On our way home, we stopped at my maternal grandparents'. I wanted to have some pie, but my dad didn't; he didn't mind stopping just to visit. I believe my cousin Joey had made the pumpkin pie. I went upstairs to see my cousins, and they all seemed rather unenthusiastic about me being there.

1999--I woke up and went outside to get the newspaper to see if the story I had talked my mom into submitting to the Deseret News had been printed. Our paper girl, Abby Snarr, had put a miniscule "Happy Thanksgiving" card in the paper. I asked my mom what section our story would be in if it had been printed. Would it be the Family section? That was a good guess, as I looked at that section and there was our story on the front of it. The story was about the time in the 1970s when my family had the table crack on Thanksgiving and ended up eating on a ping-pong table. The News had selected ours as the best one, so we got an enormous illustration made specially for our story, of a turkey with Band-aids, people sitting at a table so high only their noses reach above it, and carving the turkey with ping-pong paddles. In fact, our story was the only one published in the Family section; the rest were published elsewhere since they were inferior. (You can read the story, sans the illustration, here. The reason the writing isn't very good is because my mom didn't take it too seriously because she didn't think it would be published, and because she let me, as an eleven-year-old, do some editing. I'm the one who put in the pointless ellipsis.) I wore a tan shirt with a red sweater vest. We drove down to Fillmore for dinner. I remember my aunt Terri coming up to me and saying something about "Do you have a story to tell us?" She had heard about our story being in the paper. I remember being in my grandparents' rumpus room with my cousin Rayce and he turned on a tape with "I'll Be Home for Christmas" on it, and I told him, "Not till tomorrow!" That night we drove back to Salt Lake and stopped at my other grandparents'. I was disappointed that Salt Lake City already had some Christmas lights up. My family turned on the Christmas radio station, which I objected to, and my brother was singing along with "The Prayer of the Children." Although now that I think about this, it's possible this last part occurred in 2002, and not 1999. I hate it when I can't remember! But I think this is right.

1998 and 1997--Unfortunately, I have some memories that do not attach themselves to a particular year. But I know they occurred during one of these years. So I am going to combine them and treat them as one Thanksgiving. For all I know, they could be all from one year, and I have none from another. We had Thanksgiving at our house, since my grandparents were on their mission. My then-uncle Wayne had given my mom some blue/purple potatoes to make mashed potatoes. So our mashed potatoes were purple. There were some extra ones that were small, so she gave them back when they arrived. My cousin Peter saw them and asked his dad, "What are those?" He replied, "Potatoes. What do they look like?" I remember thinking They look like plums. They definitely don't look like potatoes. When we sat down to dinner, I said to my cousins, "I hope I don't eat so much that my pants rip." They told me that I said that every Thanksgiving, and I was surprised. When we went around to say what we were thankful for, I remember my aunt Sue saying she was thankful for the Gospel. After dinner, I think my cousin Rhys wanted to read a Christmas story, but my mom decided to tell him a story she had read--I think in the newspaper, but I can't be sure because the Deseret News's search feature really needs to be fixed--about a boy who was allergic to potatoes, but he worshiped his older brother who loved potatoes, and this boy had an allergic reaction to potatoes on Thanksgiving, and they went to the hospital, and his sister asked why they kept doing this, and the boy said they had to have potatoes for his brother. (I'm sorry for the run-on sentence. I just didn't want to place more emphasis on this than one sentence.) My cousin Jesse spent the night. I do think Jesse spending the night and the potato story are from 1998, but I'm not sure.

1996--What's worse than not remembering when something happened? Not remembering it at all. I have no idea what happened this Thanksgiving. I know what I did in school that Tuesday, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

1995--I know we spent this Thanksgiving in Fillmore. But all I remember is driving home in our Jeep while reading and listening to The Forgotten Carols. There might also have been some talk about search lights and my sister said our cousin Todd had once said they were aliens, but this might have actually been a different car ride altogether.

1994--I remember driving home with my family and seeing all the houses with Christmas lights. I said, "People are so stupid!" and noted it wasn't Christmas yet. But my mom and my sister said, "They can put them up if they want to." This was something I hadn't thought of, and I decided I wanted to put up Christmas stuff when we got home. I asked my mom if we could, but she said we had to clean first. So I got on my hands and my knees to pick up the specks off the carpet throughout the house. (A vacuum cleaner would have been better.) My brother was watching Home Alone on TV, and I wanted to watch it too, but I wanted to put up Christmas even more. So after I finished my "cleaning," I went under the stairs to the Christmas boxes to bring up decorations one at a time. The first two were a Santa candle and a wooden Christmas tree shape, which I put on the piano. Later that evening my mom brought up an entire box of Christmas stuff, and I remember thinking just a little bit that that took the fun out of it. Today I identify more with the "People are so stupid!" sentiment and less with the "I want to put Christmas up now" sentiment.

1993--We were going around the table at my maternal grandparents' house saying what we were thankful for, but I had no idea what was going on, so when it was my turn, I told everyone how for Christmas I once got my mom a Christmas ornament. In later years I wondered why I didn't recall any reaction from anyone. The only face I remember from this incident is that of my cousin Ryan, and his face was just as if I had said something completely normal.

That's all, folks!