Giving Has No Accent (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy's Poetry Day and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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In any language, dialect or accent, giving a child a gift at Christmas is a delight, especially for parents.

Parents who are incarcerated, however, don't have the luxury of giving something to their children.

This is where Angel Tree Ministries steps in; each July, parents in every prison across the US can fill out an Angel Tree form, asking to have a gift sent to their child in their name at Christmas, and Angel Tree works with churches around the country to make sure as many request are answered as possible.

The gifts i ordered came in, and weren't quite what i had in mind, so i went to two stores and got more items.

Yesterday they were all wrapped and delivered to the child's grandmother at her work, as the grandmother is her legal guardian while her mother is in prison.

Today a little girl i'll call Whitney, nine years old, is opening a scrapbooking kit, two different jewelry/bracelet making kits, and a weaving kit, all from her mama, to make sure she knows her mama may be away, but the love is still there, and it takes so little to make sure the child feels it.

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

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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:    

We've got the perfect plan,

and Santa is our man!

It will bring us cheer

to get him out of here.

He is always crying,

peace and quiet we are buying.

Mrs. Claus will be

his mom now, you will see!

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

Today i am thankful for the birth of Jesus, the Savior, the ultimate Gift.

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Christmas Day/Feast of the Nativity, the celebration of the birth of Jesus by Christians.

I pray you all have a blessed and beautiful Merry Christmas, or, if you do not celebrate, a blessed and beautiful Thursday.

Thanks to Barb Kowalik and The Cat Blogosphere for the event badge.        

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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

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

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

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

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is launched in a joint effort with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America, 2021

A rare polar rain aurora, caused by charged particles flowing from the Sun and stretching for 3,000 km, is visible across the North Pole, 2022

Decor of the Times (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 to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Elephant’s Child.     

This week's prompts are:

1. Bird
2. Lifetime
3. Impossible
4. Days
5. Dreams 
6. Meet

And/or

1. Spider
2. Thread
3. Secret
4. Thing
5. Author
6. Recesses

A few weeks ago, i mentioned Angel Tree.  The people in our church line up to get names of children whose parents are in prison so we can be a not-so-SECRET-Santa to them. 

No matter how short or how long the prison term, each year must feel like a LIFETIME to those behind bars and the family who miss them.  It's a joy to try to make a couple of these kids Christmas DREAMS come true.

The two boys whose names i'd chosen wanted the latest, greatest game system, so they could play a specific SPIDERman game, among others.  Unfortunately, it's sold out everywhere, IMPOSSIBLE to get unless you want to pay more than double the retail price.  Instead i ordered another game system, one with games built in so they don't ever have to buy games.

Of course, it got backordered.  Now i'm hanging by a THREAD to my sanity, i just want to find something for these children, especially as a little BIRD told me the 12-year-old has cancer.

Finally i asked the mom if there was anything else these boys would like.  It turns out they wouldn't mind having bikes.  Okay, i agreed to MEET her at a store that sells bikes when i was done with my DAYS' work.

She couldn't make it, instead the grandmother brought them, and the store was out of bikes in the sizes for the boys.

Deep breath, offer them options -- come back when the bikes are restocked, go to another store, or get them something else they like.

Younger boy would love a hoverboard, so we find him one, and i insist on getting a helmet to go with it.  (Yes, i would have gotten them helmets for the bikes, too.  Always Wear A Helmet!)

Elder boy, the one undergoing chemo for leukemia, can't have a hoverboard.  His bones could break too easily because of his treatments.  It turns out he has a THING for action figures from a show he watches, so we found him several of those.  He also wanted a Baby Yoda pillow to hold when he goes in for treatments.

Yes, i'm the blog AUTHOR, but i can't make this stuff up.  In the RECESSES of one aisle were home decor pillows, and one was a Baby Yoda.

Of course i blew the budget on this, but it was worth it, and i didn't blow it badly enough to have to cut out anyone else's gifts.

Merry Christmas to all!

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Today is:

Beetle Banquet and Badger Ball -- Fairy Calendar

Chipmunks Day -- the date, in 1958, when Alvin, Simon, and Theodore hit #1 with "The Chipmunk Song"

Day Sacred to the Lares -- Ancient Roman Calendar (household gods)

Hari Ibu -- Indonesia (Mother's Day)

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)

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Gattapefur -- Sniffer, who uses his big nose on hlakkandi ("looking forward" day, when you begin to look forward to Christmas) to sniff out a cake or two to snatch

Khoiak Ceremony for Raising the Djed Pillar -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (Osiris festival, the pillar represented his spine, and so stability and strength; date approximate)

National Date Nut Bread Day

Santa Claus Flight Clearance Day -- US FAA (they make sure he's cleared to fly, with his de-icing system, Terrain Avoidance Warning System for low-altitude flight, and special seat belt extension in good working order)

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini's Day (Mother Cabrini, the first US citizen canonized; Patron saint of emigrants, hospital administrators, immigrants, orphans; against malaria)

Unity Day -- Zimbabwe

Birthdays Today:

Jordin Sparks, 1989

Ralph Fiennes, 1962

Maurice Gibb, 1949

Robin Gibb, 1949

Steve Garvey, 1948

Diane Sawyer, 1945

Steve Carlton, 1944

Hector Elizondo, 1936

Joe Pyne, 1925

Barbara Billingsley, 1922

Gene Rayburn, 1917

Claudia Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson, 1912

Dame Edith Margaret Emily "Peggy" Ashcroft, 1907

Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869

Giacomo Puccini, 1858

William Ellery, 1727

James Edward Oglethorpe, 1696

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Graduate(Film), 1972

"Ding Dong School"(TV), 1952

Today in History:

A serious earthquake strikes Innsbruck, 1689

The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies, 1790

The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India, 1851

Jules Janssen flies in a balloon in order to study a solar eclipse, 1870

The first string of Christmas tree lights is created by Thomas Edison, 1882

Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, becomes the first Prime Minister of Japan, 1885

French officer Alfred Dreyfus court-martialed for treason, triggers worldwide charges of anti-Semitism (Dreyfus later vindicated), 1894

Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity, 1956

Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany, 1989

Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63, 2001

An important peer-reviewed study of the spatial memory of bumblebees is published in the Biology Letters journal of the Royal Society by a class of 25 8- to 10-year-old children at Blackawton Primary School, 2010

Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV is found to be 70-100% effective in a study published in The Lancet, becoming the world's first proven vaccine against Ebola, 2016

A tsunami hits Indonesia's Sunda Strait killing over 400 after part of the Anak Krakatoa (Child of Krakatoa) volcano slips into the sea, 2018