Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 6:45 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 34° under cloudy-skies. Today's high will be 38°. also under cloudy-skies. There are no current watches, warnings, nor advisories in the forecast. The sun will rise today @ 7:54 a.m. and set later @ 5:11 p.m.

Well, another one has come and gone, Thanksgiving 2019 is in the books. We/I had a great time. The vegan food was great, my pumpkin pie became my early morning snack this morning, by the by, it was very tasty, and the dishes and the kitchen are now nearly spic and span once again. I promised the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, that I'd leave the cast-iron skillet clean up to her ministrations, and so I did.

However, I'd be remiss if I didn't step outside the box, or maybe stay in the box a bit longer, if I didn't get to what I consider the real meaning of Thanksgiving and the entire holiday season.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a short essay entitled Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old. I had riffed off of an old song by the Who entitled My Generation. That song has these lyrics "I hope I die before I get old", as one of the tag lines written by the band's lead guitarist, Pete Townsend.

That lyric set me to thinking about what we value most in life, what we feel gives our lives meaning and purpose. It's not your job. It's not how much money you have. It's not what you possess, well mostly.

That last sentence is my way of saying that the one thing that we all possess, that one thing that makes life the most enjoyable can't be bought, but it can be saved. That thing is memories.

As I noted in my essay, our family was never large, owing to the fact that my dad was an only child, and my mother was effectively an only child due to the fact that her only brother was never able to have children. Thus, I never had any cousins.

What my brothers and I did have, was a co-opted family composed of my mother's mother, her aunts, and uncles, her cousins, and their extended families. My maternal grandmother, Nane, ame wit her own set of relatives, her sister, Aunt Marie and her husband, Uncle Jimmy, and their daughter Merrilee. Nane's first cousin, Aunt Grace, and her husband, Uncle Andy, and their daughter Marcia. Nane's other sister May and her husband, James, his wife Marge, and their children, Jimmy and Kathy. FYI, my mother named me for her favorite uncle, John  French, May's son, whom everyone called Jack. What our own family lacked in size, we made up for in that extended, co-opted family of relatives.

Mary was adopted by her own family and I know she had a large number of  adopted relatives on both sides of her adoptive family. Strangely, I can remember the names of her first cousins, her aunts, and her uncles to this day. I even remember some of the events that we attended when we were first married. We don't see those people any longer, but that's okay, because I have the memories.  

That leads me back to where I started. Mary and I sat down to our vegan Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, that while it may have lacked in guests, it was made enjoyable by the presence of memories, memories of holidays, birthdays, and dinners with our co-opted families.

Mary worked hard on our dinner and although she said it wasn't her best one to date, it was great for me. I had memories of our own past dinners and celebrations with Adam and Stephany and the joy of the season to make the day special. I had the chance to share one more day of life with the one person in life that has made my life more meaningful, Mary. However I must admit, that cleaning up the kitchen after yesterday's dinner took a while, but that was fine by me, because it gave me still more memories.

This seems like a good place to insert the pictures taken by our Senior Staff Photographer yesterday.

My homemade vegan pie crust as I was prepping it for the filling that Mary helped me prepare.

The filled pie ready for the oven.

Croutons for the dressing made from Mary's homemade bread

In the bowl being stirred in preparation for baking

The end product, including my personal favorite, Ocean Spry jellied cranberry sauce, the vegan tofu main course, dressing, and garlic mashed potatoes.

Today it is time to do the one thing that I like the most, set up our Christmas tree and decorate the manse for the Christmas season, including some new outdoor lights. The ornaments on our tree are mostly of the type that are souvenirs of trips we have taken, a concept borrowed from Adam and Steph. We have miniature license plates from Florida, tickets from plays and musicals we have seen, and what some might call bric-a-brac that we've accumulated over the years such as driftwood and seashells.

Each piece of that bric-a-brac comes with its own memories. Each year, I top our tree with a finial, a tree topper that we purchased at the Christkindlmarket held each year in downtown Chicago. Plus, we have an ornament that came from the Holland Kerstmarkt. I am running out of branches.

Underneath, we have a trolley that we "inherited" from Adam and Steph that seems to complete the tree as much as the finial on top. So today marks the start of the second half of the holiday season for me as I set up for Christmas and New Year's Day.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the Bears defeated the Lions yesterday. 24 - 17.

Today, it is time to get to that decorating, do another walk with the fur-children, and that's about it. Ciao.