Everybody's Getting Festive (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

***********************************

Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Steve at BeThere2Day, Catsynth, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

***********************************

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

This month Wisewebwoman is providing the prompts and they will be posted by Elephant's Child.    

This week's prompts are:

• Ravioli
• Serenity
• Marble
• Bridge
• Soccer

and/or

• Foliage
• Nepotism
• Lectern
• Lantern
• Gorgonzola

Charlotte (MotherOwl) has selected light blue as the colour of the month.

There was so much to do before the holidays she was feeling rather Grinchy, like she wanted to stuff the RAVIOLI with GORGONZOLA or another stinky cheese instead of the usual ricotta mix for the BRIDGE club party, or buy a gift of FOLIAGE of some sort, a potted plant, as the gift for her son to take to the exchange at his SOCCER team party.

She grabbed her favorite MARBLE rolling pin and started to roll out pie dough much more vigorously than necessary.  She knew she wouldn't do any of those things, of course, but she imagined the speech she could give about NEPOTISM at work if she could ever get to the LECTERN.

This line of thought was not helping her in any way to recover her SERENITY, and she knew she had to stop it now before she snapped at someone who didn't deserve it.  Once she had the pie in the oven, she knew she had an uninterrupted 45 minutes.  She grabbed her favorite Light Blue sweater, the old oil LANTERN and her Grandmother's diary, with its prayers and thoughts and notes from a lifetime of hard work in which her Grandmother's overwhelming demeanor was one of calm love of The Lord and her family.  

Reading the diary always soothed her, she almost felt as if she were praying alongside Grandmother, who taught her to lisp her prayers as a small child.

She sat out on the back porch in the twilight, lit the wick and read until she heard the ding of the oven timer inside.  Coming back in a much calmer frame of mind, she found herself humming tunes her Grandmother taught her as she finished up supper and made plans.

It wasn't going to be such a difficult time after all, at least not this evening.

***********************************

Today is:

Bake Cookies Day -- the holiday for everyone!

Eponalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (feast of Epona, goddess of fertility and horses, mules, and donkeys; during the Saturnalia and the only Roman honoring of a Celtic deity)

Flake Appreciation Day -- snow or human, your choice!

Hug a Soccer Player Day -- this "holiday" has a Facebook page, but no other history

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Hurdaskellir -- Door-Slammer, a noisy fellow who tries to keep everyone awake

International Answer the Phone like Buddy the Elf Day -- for fans of the film Elf, starring Will Ferrel

International Migrants Day -- UN

Khoiak Ceremony for the Sokar Festival -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (falcon god; date approximate)

Let's See What We Find In the Fridge Day -- to bravely see if you've left anything in the back that you shouldn't have (a good idea before cooking Christmas dinner)

National Day / Founder's Day -- Qatar

National Roast Suckling Pig Day

National Scrooge Week begins -- at least according to Mr. Ed

Nuestra Senora de la Soledad -- Oaxaca, Mexico (Our Lady of Solitude, Patron of the lonely, of Oaxaca, and of sailors who bring her pearls)

Republic Day -- Niger

St. Flannan's Day (Patron of Killaloe, Ireland)

Tulya's E'en -- Orkney Island (beginning of the Yule season when evil spirits roamed; date approximate, as we aren't sure if they equated Yule initially with Dec. 25 or the 22nd)

Anniversaries Today:

Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's future president, marries Asif Ali Zardari, 1987

Capitol Reef National Park established, Utah, US, 1971

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, outlawing slavery, takes effect, 1865

New Jersey becomes the 3rd US State, 1787

Birthdays Today:

Christina Aguilera, 1980

Katie Holmes, 1978

Earl "DMX" Simmons, 1970

Rob Van Dam, 1970

Rachel Griffiths, 1968

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin, 1964

Brad Pitt, 1963

Ray Liotta, 1955

Leonard Maltin, 1950

Steven Spielberg, 1946

Keith Richards, 1943

Ossie Davis, 1917

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, 1917

Douglas Fraser, 1916

Betty Grable, 1916

Willy Brandt, 1913

Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., 1912

Ty Cobb, 1886

Joseph Grimaldi, 1778

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Sunshine Boys"(Play), 1972

"To Tell The Truth"(TV), 1956

"The Nutcracker"(Ballet), 1892

Today in History:

Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic, BC218

Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan", officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China, 1271

The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts with 102 Pilgrims on board, 1620

Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand, 1642

Thomas Fleet publishes "Mother Goose's Melodies For Children", 1719

Empress Maria Theresa expels Jews from Prague, Bohemia & Moravia, 1774

The first celestial photograph (of the Moon) is made in US, by John Draper, NYC, 1839

William Bond obtains the first photograph of Moon through a telescope, 1849

Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde, 1888

The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic, 1900

The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is supposedly found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson, 1912

Japan joins the United Nations, 1956

Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker, 1966

Dominica joins the United Nations, 1978

HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium, 1997

The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia, 2006

The United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth II attends a meeting of the Cabinet for the first time, receiving a gift honoring her Diamond Jubilee; this was first time a Cabinet meeting was attended by a British monarch since the reign of Queen Victoria, 2012

A meteor explodes in huge fireball over the Bering Sea with 10 times the energy of Hiroshima atomic bomb, 2018

The international community establishes Covax to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to low and middle income countries, announcing deals with vaccine manufacturers and methods for countries to share excess vaccines, 2020

The Icelandic volcano on Reykjanes peninsula erupts, a mere 40km from the country's capital of Reykjavik, 2023