Fun Solution (Six Sentence Story), Holiday Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day, and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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It was time again for the Angel Tree, choosing a child or children whose parent is incarcerated, and making sure that child gets a gift in the name of that parent, so they know mom or dad hasn't forgotten them.

The two boys i picked had their hearts set on getting a game console, and there was a dilemma here.  Most of those cost in the range of $300-$1,000, way out of my league, and way beyond what i am supposed to spend in this program.

When i took my laptop to my go to favorite repair shop, his assistant became my guide, as i spoke to him about gaming systems and asked if he had any advice about what i could do in this situation.

He pointed me toward a new item, a game console that has all the classic Nintendo games, the Mario series, Donkey Kong, in fact, it has 600 games pre-programmed, no need to buy any games to go with the system!

Best of all, it was within budget, even with the adapters i bought to make sure they can hook it up to any TV type; it may not be the latest and greatest, but i think they can have hours of fun playing some of these games that entertained my children when they were growing up.

Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Guide.      

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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!

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It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day!  This week's image and my poem:    

How I love being Santa,

And bringing Christmas joy,

Some love me more than others, though,

Like this sweet girl and boy.

They think I'm big and scary,

But give them about a year,

Then they'll come back and give me lists

And enjoy the Christmas cheer.

They'll look back on this picture and laugh,

Then later, with their own kids in tow,

Santa will still be smiling,

As their children the same fits do throw!

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Brian of Brian's Home hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  

Today i am thankful for my heating pad, as the weather has gotten chilly again. Actually, i am thankful i have two of them, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.

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Today is:

Anna's Day -- Sweden and Finland (commemorates the conception of the Virgin Mary by St. Anne, celebration for all females named Anne or Anna, and the day to start the processing of the Christmas Eve lutefisk.)

Christmas Card Day -- the first commercial card went on sale on this day in 1843

Christmas Gift Memory Day -- the day to reminisce about your all time favorite Christmas gift

End of Days of Reckoning -- Fairy Calendar

Feast of the Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos by St. Anne -- Orthodox Church

International Anti-Corruption Day -- UN

National Heroes Day / Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., Day -- Antigua and Barbuda

National Pastry Day

Remembrance for Egill Skallagrimsson -- Asatru/Norse Pagan Calendar (Viking Age poet, warrior, and rune magician)

Republic Day -- Tanzania

Search High and Low For Your Gingerbread Recipe Day -- or just give up and go to the internet for a new one, that's where i found this "holiday"

St. Leocadia's Day (Patron of Toledo, Spain)

Weary Willie Day -- birth anniversary of Emmet Kelley, Sr.

Yuri's Day in the Autumn -- Russian Orthodox Church (a celebration of St. George, as following the Gregorian Calendar)

Anniversaries Today:

Petrified Forest National Park, AZ, US, established, 1962

Christmas Seals first sold, in Wilmington, DE, US, 1907

"Charge of the Light Brigade" published, 1854

YMCA opens in Montreal, QC, CA (first in North America), 1851

Birthdays Today:

Jesse Metcalfe, 1978

Reiko Aylesworth, 1972

David Kersh, 1970

Kara DioGuardi, 1970

Jakob Dylan, 1969

Kurt Angle, 1968

Felicity Huffman, 1962

David Anthony Higgins, 1961

Joe Lando, 1961

Donny Osmond, 1957

John Malkovich, 1953

Joan Armatrading, 1950

Michael Nouri, 1945

Dick Butkus, 1942

Beau Bridges, 1941

Judy Dench, 1934

Buck Henry, 1930

Dick Van Patten, 1928

Dina Merrill, 1925

Redd Foxx, 1922

Kirk Douglas, 1916

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., 1909

Grace Hopper, 1906

Margaret Hamilton, 1902

Emmet Kelley, Sr., 1898

Clarence Birdseye, 1886

Joel Chandler Harris, 1848

John Milton, 1608

Edwin Sandys, 1561

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"(TV special), 1965

"Coronation Street"(TV), 1960

"Salome"(Opera), 1905

"Charge of the Light Brigade"(Publication date, in The Examiner), 1854

Today in History:

The Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire, 536

New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster, 1793

The Republic of Texas captures San Antonio, Texas, 1835

The first Young Men's Christian Association in the Americas is founded, in Montreal, 1851

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback becomes governor of Louisiana for 35 days, becoming the first black US governor, 1872

Levant Richardson patents the ball-bearing skate, 1884

Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department, 1888

The Norwegian parliament vote unanimously for female suffrage, 1903

The first broadcast of "Coronation Street" on British ITV, 1960

Barbados joins the United Nations, 1966

NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco, 1968

The United Arab Emirates join the United Nations, 1971

The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, 1979

Phoenix, Arizona, US, gets 3 inches of snow, 1985

Lech Walesa wins the presidental election in Poland, 1990

In Australia, thieves broke into a home and stole two 300-year-old etchings by Rembrandt. The 4-by-4-inch etchings, a self-portait and a depiction of the artist's mother, were valued around $518,000, 2003

Pakistan's media publish fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India, 2010

China creates a new "Coonfucius Peace Prize" to honor its former Taiwanese Vice President, Lien Chan, who refused to collect it, 2010

The NASA Mars rover Curiosity has returned images from the red planet's Gale Crater showing evidence of sediment deposits, suggesting that lakes and rivers potentially existed across the planet millions of years ago, 2014

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, for her handling of debt and refugee crises, 2015

Whakaari volcano, a tourist attraction in New Zealand, erupts killing 16, 2019