Growing up in rural New England, white Christmases were a given, but now, with climate change, they are a special treat here in the Northeast. Wherever you are and whatever holidays you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you peace, love, joy, and safety.
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(Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash)
Wishing everyone celebrating Thanksgiving today a meaningful experience. We are lucky to have my older sister and her husband here visiting for the holiday. For various reasons, we are forgoing the traditional turkey in favor of roast beef and popovers. B, however, did make the traditional apple and pumpkin pies.
B’s nod to turkey was to craft one with his knife while venting the apple pie.
Daughter E is making a more traditional Thanksgiving meal “across the pond” in London where she lives with her family. It’s nice that our dual-citizen granddaughters are growing up with the tradition of Thanksgiving from the United States, even though it’s just another autumn Thursday at school there.
Here, we are having some wet snow for the holiday. It’s been a strange fall with an unusual level of drought, relieved some lately by wet snow and rain. Not sure what will come next.
Wishing everyone some special moments today, whether you are celebrating a holiday or not.
A new, celebratory sign erected near me!
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Our then one-year-old granddaughter ABC enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with her great-grandfather Paco in the background; I’m missing both of them today, one due to distance, the other to death.
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Over the weekend, my alma mater, Smith College, inaugurated Sarah Willie-LeBreton as their twelfth president in a joy-filled celebration.
For those of you who may not be familiar, Smith was established in 1871 in Northampton, Massachusetts as a women’s college that would provide an education for women equal to that which had long been available to men. It has continued that mission through the years and has in recent decades worked diligently to make a Smith education possible to promising students in underserved communities, such as those who are the first generation in their family to seek higher education. For example, it has eliminated student loans from its financial aid packages and gives grants to students in need to help them obtain essential items like computers.
I was a Smith student during the tenure of the first woman to be Smith president, Jill Kerr Conway (1975-85). We affectionately referred to her as “Jill” although we would always have addressed her as President Conway in person. It felt right to me to hear an alumna during the inauguration refer to Dr. Willie-LeBreton as “President Sarah” so that is how I am thinking of her now.
President Sarah is a sociologist, a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), a Black woman, and an experienced educator and administrator. She exudes joy and elicits it in others. Her official inauguration, coming several months into her tenure as president, was a joyous celebration of the history and heritage of President Sarah and of Smith College and how they are entwined as a community for the present and the future. I loved the greetings and involvement of other college presidents, who were so welcoming of President Sarah in their remarks. I especially appreciated the video appearance of Ruth Simmons, who was Smith’s first Black president – until she was stolen recruited by Brown University to become the first Black president of an Ivy League institution.
President Sarah’s inaugural address was impressive. I appreciated her strong support for liberal arts education. She emphasized how our knowledge must be in conjunction with our values. She says:
We are at our peril when we teach rote memorization without collaborative problem-solving and when we encourage the fusion of identity with grades, rather than with what challenges students and brings them joy. We are at our peril when we nurture cleverness without providing the opportunities to consult our moral compass, without providing opportunities to do for and with others. The liberal arts education we provide is the perfect antidote to the division, threats to democracy, diminishing of rights and freedoms, violence, and natural catastrophes to which we wake up on a daily basis.
(The inauguration ceremony is available online here; President Sarah’s remarks begin at the 1:12 mark.)
I would have loved to attend in person, but, like many alumnae, could only watch virtually. Smith did a good job of including us, even though we couldn’t be there physically. One way that they did this was to invite us to send a photo and caption of where we find joy. The photos were assembled into an interactive mosaic. The mosaic is searchable by name, class year, or key word to find specific photos in the mosaic. I sent a photo of my granddaughters, ABC and JG, heading out on their new school year. I’m honored to have them represented as we all share and, in so doing, multiply our joy.
Congratulations, President Sarah! I look forward to years of connection, love, commitment, and joy as a continuing, if geographically distant, part of the Smith family.
(Photo is of my first and most enduring Smith friend, my roommate Mary, and me, on tour with the Smith Alumnae Chorus in Slovenia in 2019.)
The US tends to have a lot of whimsical “holidays” in honor of just about any food, activity, relationship, etc. imaginable. March 14 is celebrated as “Pi Day” because Pi is 3.14…
The celebration entails eating pie. While Brent often bakes for Pi Day, this year I bought a suitably dedicated cherry pie from Wegmans.
Wishing an equally delicious pie to all those celebrating!
When E and T were children, we started celebrating the New Year with them at midnight Greenwich Mean Time, which is 7:00 PM in our time zone. We would have a toast with sparkling cider or grape juice.
Not being night owls, we still follow that tradition at our house. B found an online feed from the BBC of the celebration in London, with the chiming of Big Ben and fireworks along the Thames, this year not only celebrating the New Year but also recognizing the 50th anniversary of Gay Pride, the death of Queen Elizabeth and beginning of the reign of King Charles, and support for Ukraine and for all those suffering around the world.
It’s especially meaningful to celebrate with London with daughter E and her family living there. While we were watching the broadcast, E sent us a video of fireworks being set off in her neighborhood.
For a moment, it made the distance between us feel smaller.
Happy New Year to you, wherever you are on the globe. May peace, love, and care for each other increase.
On Saturday, September 17, 2022, I went back to my hometown, Monroe, Massachusetts, for their bicentennial celebration. There will eventually be a proper post about the fun and meaningful day I had there but I wanted to give a little shout-out today.
These welcome signs are new. This is the one at the Massachusetts/Vermont state line about half a mile from where our house was back in the day.
Here in the US, this past weekend was a major event for lots of folks. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which football fans watch for the game and lots of others watch for the innovative commercials and the halftime show. It’s a long period of time so there tends to be be lots of snacking with chips and dip and wings and pizza and beer and such. Some people are binging on winter Olympic viewing, instead of or in addition to the Super Bowl. Many people also moved their celebration of Valentine’s Day to the weekend, encouraged by restaurants who are still trying to re-build their business as the pandemic (maybe) winds down or, at least, this most recent wave.
Things were pretty quiet at our house, though.
We aren’t big football fans. We have only been watching limited amounts of the Olympics, mostly figure skating, and often via DVR so we can watch the events without all the ads and commentary. I admit that I usually watch more Olympic coverage but the complications of Chinese politics and the bizarre participation of Russia with the doping problem still hanging over them make me less enthused about these particular games. The threat of Russia to Ukraine is also casting a pall, especially since Russia has previously used the time of the Olympics to take military action, hoping the world was too preoccupied to notice.
We did observe Valentine’s Day, but quietly at home and on Monday instead of over the weekend. As I am at a point in my grief process where planning celebrations is still difficult, spouse B did the lion’s share of the work, with daughter T contributing thoughtful cards and candles for the table. I did bring home a pot of mini-daffodils and some dairy-free chocolate for B and T, a token nod to the tradition of flowers and chocolate for Valentine’s Day.
B planned and executed a lovely dinner for the three of us. He made individual Beef Wellington with mushrooms rather pâté, served with fresh sautéed green beans. For dessert, he made white chocolate mousse, which was rich and delicious. He chose that because I can no longer eat cocoa but still enjoy the luxurious melt-in-your-mouth-ness of cocoa butter.
A sweet and quiet Valentine’s Day suits me.
Thanks to B, it was what we were able to celebrate.
A gift from my sister to honor our dad, known here as Paco, on his 96th birthday last week. ❤
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Joanne Corey 