Seasonal Wordless Wednesday and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.      

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts that encourages us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Cindi.      

This week the prompt is:

Share a tradition you have at this time of year; when, why or how it became a tradition; and how it makes you feel.

There are plenty of traditions here, such as the holiday menu, the watching of the movie A Christmas Story at least twice, and that the dogs will repeatedly be under foot and then banished to a room or to outside, only to have us relent a few minutes later and let them come back to be underfoot again.

The most recent tradition is "the tree."

Years ago, when they had a bigger home and kids still in it, Grandma and Grandpa would get a very tall tree and trim it up big time.  A few years ago, they stopped because it became too much for them.

About 4 years ago, Uncle P and Miss Eva (yes, they are married now, but i've always called her that and it's not going to change) gave Grandma a small, live tree for Christmas.  It was painted white, not flocked, and somehow, for some reason, it just dried out but did not shed the needles and didn't fall apart.

Grandma kept the ornaments on it and moved it out to the sun porch (or three season room, or whatever it would be in other parts of the country).  It simply sat for the whole year that first year, still decorated.

The next year, it was hauled out to be used again.  It's been used every year since.

Somehow the painting it white instead of flocking it has preserved that tree in a way we did not expect.  As Grandma has made more ornaments over the years, she has added two other small trees, little fir trees in pots, and all of them live on the sun porch except at Christmas, when they are pulled into the main living room to do their decorative and festive best.

It's a fun, new tradition, to leave the ornaments on small trees that are simply kept set aside the rest of the year.  It makes everything easier on Grandma and Grandpa, and we are all amused by the little Christmas tree that just lasts and lasts.

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To all who celebrate, a blessed and beautiful Merry Christmas to you!!!

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Today is:

A'phabet Day -- a/k/a No "L" Day!  yes, go ahead and groan

Carol Day -- internet generated, listed as different dates, but this is the last day this year you should have to listen to Christmas songs, so enjoy

Children's Day -- Cameroon; Chad; Central African Republic; Congo; Congo DR; Equatorial Guinea; Gabon; Uruguay

Christmas Day/Feast of the Nativity -- Christian/Orthodox Christian

Constitution Day -- Taiwan

Dia de la Familia -- Uruguay

Dies Natalis Invicti Solis -- Ancient Roman Calendar (birthday of the invincible sun god)

Ennead Feast in the Houses of Ra, Horus, and Osiris -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Family Day -- Angola; Mozambique; Uruguay

Icelandic Traditional Calendar Month Morsugr "Fat Sucker" begins -- Iceland (refering to the daily fare becoming scant in deep winter and body fat is used up)

Malkh-Festival -- Nakh peoples of Chechenya and Ingushetia (a sun god festival)

National Pumpkin Pie Day

Quaid-e-Azam's Day -- Pakistan (birth anniversary of "Great Leader," the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Day -- introduced by Montgomery Ward Department Store this day in 1939

Sarsodaw Pwe -- Myanmar (Writers' Day/Literati Day, especially celebrated by the press, and includes The National Literary Award Presentation Ceremony as well as public lectures, essay contests, and story-telling events)

St. Anastasia of Sirmium's Day (Patron of martyrs, weavers, and widows)

Anniversaries Today:

Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan, 1926

Washington crosses the Delaware, 1776

Birthdays Today

Dido, 1971

Rickey Henderson, 1958

Shane MacGowan, 1957

Annie Lennox, 1954

Karl Rove, 1950

Ron Foos, 1949

Sissy Spacek, 1949

Barbara Mandrell, 1948

Larry Csonka, 1946

Jimmy Buffett, 1946

Gary Sandy, 1945

Hanna Schygulla, 1943

Carlos Castaneda, 1925

Rod Serling, 1924

Anwar Sadat, 1918

Quentin Crisp, 1908

Cab Calloway, 1907

Humphrey Bogart, 1899

Cal Farley, 1895

Robert Ripley, 1893

Dame Rebecca West, 1892

Conrad Hilton, 1887

Evangeline Cory Booth, 1865

Clara Barton, 1821

Isaac Newton, 1642

Traditional Birthday of Mithras

Traditional Birthday of Sol

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Sword in the Stone(Disney animated film), 1963

"The Steve Allen Show"(TV), 1950

"Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts", 1931

"Why Marry?"(Play, first to win a Pulitzer for Drama), 1917 

"Symphony Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste ... en cinq parties"(Berlioz Symphony), 1830

Today in History:

The first Christmas, according to calendar maker Dionysus Exiguus, 1

The earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th, 337

The first definite date that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th, 352

Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome, 800

William I, Conqueror, crowned king of England, 1066

Boudouin I of Boulogne crowned king of Jerusalem, 1100

Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first King of Sicily, 1130

St Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene, in Greccio, Italy, 1223

The city of Natal, Brazil is founded., 1599

Gov William Bradford of Plymouth forbids game playing on Christmas, 1621

The Massachusetts General Court ordered a fine of five shillings for "observing any such day as Christmas", 1651

The first performance of "Silent Night" takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria, 1818

Louisiana & Arkansas are the first US states to observe Christmas as holiday, 1831

Despite bitter opposition, Pres Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all persons involved in Southern rebellion (a/k/a the Civil War, or, tongue planted firmly in cheek, that recent unpleasantness between the States), 1868

The legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place between the British & Germans, 1914

Emperor Taisho of Japan dies; his son, Prince Hirohito succeeds him as Emperor Showa, 1926

Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th reindeer, 1939

The first in Europe artificial, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated within Soviet nuclear reactor F-1, 1946

The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students, 1950

Richard Starkey gets his first drum set for Christmas, 1957

Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneouver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit, 1968

Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory Australia, 1974

Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, 1977

The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web, 1990

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day), 1991

Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which would later successfully land on Saturn's moon Titan, 2004

The South Pole records its warmest temperature at -12.3 degrees Celsius at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 2011