What does it say about us that more states celebrate Black Friday (the shopping day after Thanksgiving) than Lincoln’s birthday? Or that in eighteen states, Black Friday is a paid holiday for government employees, often in lieu of Columbus Day?
You know yourself what it says. That spares me any need to struggle to keep an upbeat, optimistic tone when I admit that I miss the February 12th acknowledgment of Lincoln’s birthday. Our shiny new Presidents Day is a hollow thing that commemorates nothing. Continue Reading
Today is Shrove Tuesday. Last day of the ancient carnival season and herald of Lent, it has dwindled down to a New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, Fasching in Munich, and not much of anything elsewhere. Does Mardi Gras have a purpose anymore besides showing off your bottom and getting drunk on Bourbon Street? Letting go—as the saying goes—does not mean much when there is little left to let go of.
We are a long way from the spring customs of European peasantry. Continue Reading
Cum grano salis. With a grain of salt. The phrase has kept me company for years. Within days of leaving our Brooklyn brownstone for this house outside the city, I painted it over the door that leads from the kitchen down to the boiler room. It was up on the lintel before I even hung curtains or finished unpacking. Somehow, it seemed more important than knowing where to put the couch or find the toaster.
New to exurbia, my husband and I were in a strange house on unfamiliar turf. Continue Reading
In an earlier post I registered dismay at the sight of the annual Christmas wreath hanging from the foot of the crucifix in my local parish church. A careful reader familiar with the lore of holly wrote to ask: Would I still object to the placement of the wreath if it were made of holly?
Yes, I would. And perhaps the reader would, too, if he had seen it. There is no way to know. Personal sensibility comes into play. Individual taste. Continue Reading
