Thanksgiving Sunday with the Family

I have only had the opportunity to have Thanksgiving for the whole family a couple of times. Partly, because we have it on the Sunday and partly because when we really get together, there are too many for my table. A dozen friendly people is all I can seat at the table. It is usually at the home of my eldest sister, but this year things worked out so that Mike and I could host a party of ten.

Thanksgiving in Three Part Harmony

I have finished my Thanksgiving Services in the Parish just this last Sunday. The very interesting thing about Thanksgiving in a six point parish is that the original pairs still invite the other church to their service and expect the other one to close that day (In faint but eternal hope that the other congregation will actually respond to their invitation to attend the service). This leads to three Thanksgiving Services for me as the associate priest in this parish.

The first of these occurred on October 4, the weekend prior to Thanksgiving; a service that St. John's in the Woods at Aughrim calls Harvest Home. The decorations are always right out of the fields and gardens and, as this year I celebrated a wedding there the day before, the ladies of the church went all out for both the bride and the Sunday service. (I do hope to get a picture of the church and add it in as it was exceptionally lovely.) Their historically companion church, St. Matthew's in Florence held their service last weekend.

The actual weekend of Thanksgiving, I was posted at Christ Church, Dresden, and St. Stephen's, Thamesville. It is almost a tradition that I will be late going from the services in Dresden to St. Thomas -- even though the distance is quite 'doable' without doing the 'clergy clip'. But the folks at Dresden are a sociable lot and always have coffee and tasty things following the service. I shake hands with everyone as they go down stairs and listen for potential concerns and then move down to grab a coffee to go (in my 'Timmies' mug.) As a result, I am generally about 10 minutes late for the next service. The wonder woman of the parish, who refuses to be an official lay reader, faithfully starts the service for me, handing it off to me after I get there generally during the hymn of praise or the Gloria. Lunch at "Mary's" usually follows the service with three or four of the five or six present showing up. This means getting home about two.
Not a problem generally, but on Thanksgiving Sunday, (11 October) I was having ten for our family dinner and logistics were pretty interesting.

Left Behind

I feel as if I am part of a bad book right now. I keep looking at the great blogs of friends who have gone before. Wonderful things are happening to those folks, and if I weren't so happy for them I would be insanely jealous. For starters, Spring is happening; not to mention language lessons, Alpine meadows and interesting food (always a hit), and apparently even new tramps (looks remarkably similar to the old tramp).
However, it was sunny in southwestern Ontario today so things are looking up, marginally. The dilemma that exists right now is whether or not to book a vacation. The place that spoils us rotten -- near Tulum, Mexico -- has massive sales on now, costing just over a third of what it did the last time we went. So do we save the cookies for a quick dash to another country or do we take a couple of weeks off and revel in the warm waters of the Caribbean. This decision needs to be made soon; as well as wanting to have my vacation before Advent, arrives, I am keeping in mind that the weather up here in November is well past its "best by" date. The Pictures are of the view outside our third floor suite, the bestest buddy who I always take with me, and one of the thousands of ceynote that dot the Mayan Riviera. Exquisite natural variations of the "swimmin' hole" believed to have been caused by the same asteroid that formed the gulf of Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs.

I didn't realize

I didn't realize how much time it takes to do a blog. It is much like an on-line journal including the oh, drat I didn't write in my journal today. Apart from behind in posting at all, I am really behind in posting pictures, some of these were taken a couple of weeks ago. My next task is figuring out how to use the online album system so any one who is interested can go to it and look at the pictures. We went up to North Bay to our pals Gee & Gee's daughter's wedding. Had a great time and took some pictures on our way up and back. I was hoping to get some shots of the autumn colours for my screen saver and memory photos--Just my luck--it was a glorious fall for all of us, even in the near North, and only a couple of trees were tinted with orange. It was also so warm that the water in Lake Nipissing was warm enough to stand in--I wished that I had brought my bathing suit. North Bay and that Lake have some fond memories for me. When I was very young, I went there with my parents and grandparents to the lake (they were fishing) I have a very vague memory of having my picture taken in the water with my eldest sister. I remember being very cold in July there, and now I have a photo of me mid calf in the water. We did get some fun pictures in the trip -- the Mennonite horse and cart. Mount Forest's sign (NOW we know why all the planes were hovering over the corn field), and the two old broads hanging out in the water--to protect the faint of heart, I didn't include the legs.