Les Jones

Thanksgiving Progression

Random thought.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving - biggest travel day of the year (fact)

Thanksgiving - biggest eating, sleeping day of the year (personal observation)

Friday - biggest shopping day of the year (fact)

Saturday - biggest Christmas-tree putting up day of the year? (speculation)

Sunday - biggest not really doing a lot, just kind of dreading going back to work, sort of in a stupor and thinking about renting a movie day of the year (expectation)

Oh, well, off to the mall with Melissa. Those early bird bargains don't just buy themselves.

Christmas Shopping

So I've always procrastinated on Christmas shopping. This year Melissa talked me into doing early bird Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. We got up at 6:00 and sleepily put together a plan of attack.

Do $29 DVD players really exist?
Wal-Mart was advertising $29 Apex DVD players for early birds. (I have friends with Apex DVD players, and they work great.) Sears had them for $27. We were going to West Town Mall anyway, so we decided to hunt the bigger bargain at Sears. (LATER: it's probably a good thing we didn't go to Wal-Mart for those DVD players.)

When we showed up at 8:15, the $27 Apex DVD players were sold out. Also sold out were the $40 Koss DVD players. To prevent any riots, Sears marked the $60 Koss units down to $40. Those had sold out, too, so the manager marked the $69 Samsung players down to $49. There were only three left. We bought two of those, and a couple of Spider-Man and Little Princess kid's overnight bags. It wasn't yet 9:00 and we had already bought Christmas presents for four people on our list. Last year it took us a week to do that much Christmas shopping.

Next!
Next on our plan was Kohl's, which had early bird specials until 10:00 AM. Most of their clothes were half off or more, and they were giving out $10 coupons for every $50 spent. We parked between Kohl's and Old Navy, so we went from one to another. Old Navy saved us last year: we bought clothes for infants, kids and grownups, size T1 to age 101. We found lots of good kid's stuff at both stores. It was 10:40. We marked five more names off the Christmas shopping list.

Next we went back to the mall for an assault on Proffitt's, which had early bird specials until noon. Most people worry about traffic on the biggest shopping day of the year, but Knoxville traffic wasn't bad at all, even at West Town. Proffitt's parking, on the other hand, was atrocious. Driving around looking for an empty space turned out to be a rookie mistake. We finally came up with a winning strategy: drive right up to the Proffitt's entrance and follow people to their cars as they leave the store, then get their space when they pull out.

By noon we finished most of our Christmas shopping for the year and had bought ourselves a new set of stainless cookwear. Lunch was a Chicago hot dog and beer at Frank &Stein's in the food court, and it felt great to sit down and take a load off our feet. Melissa had to talk me into shopping early today, but getting all those Christmas presents bought early felt great, and the stores had really good deals. I'd do it again next year.

P.S. Silliest gift we saw: a $60 S'More Maker. Second silliest gift: a $60 Smoothie Maker, which - surprise, surprise - looked a lot like a blender.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has a great Christmas.

Melissa and I got up at 6:00 this morning. We're going to Kingsport with her parents to be with her dad's side of the family for Christmas. We had the rest of the family over last night for Christmas Eve dinner. I hope everyone can be with their families over the holidays.

Holiday Wrap-up, and a Question About Gift-Giving

According to the estimable Snopes, the day after Thanksgiving isn't the biggest shopping day of the year. I resolve to stop repeating this lie next year. The biggest day in dollars is variously one of the four weekend days leading up to Christmas.

FoxNews has advice on caring for Christmas plants. My sister gave us an amarillus last year. The idea is to store it away in the dark in late summer after it dies back, then bring it out mid-November and it will bloom again. Didn't work for us, but now I think I know why. I brought it out of the dark closet into the nearly-as-dark bedroom. Next time I'll bring it out into full sunlight.

Christmas Gift Etiquette
And here's the question about gift-giving. How does everyone else deal with presents when children are involved? This isn't so much of an issue now as it will be when we have kids of our own.

Melissa's friend Tammy - a sensible gal - gave us this advice. If she (who has a kid) saw us (who don't have kids) at Christmas, we would give presents to her kid, but not to her and her husband, and they would give us a couple's gift. If both couples had kids, they would buy for each other's kids, and buy a couple's gift for each other (or mutually agree to only buy gifts for the kids).

That sounds like a sensible plan. It ensures that the kids get plenty of gifts, minimizes the number of gifts that have to be purchased, and provides for an exchange in both directions.

How do you handle that situation?

Katie Day 65 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Christmas Update

Melissa and I braved West Knoxville today and finished our Christmas shopping. After lunch at Cozymels' we came home. Melissa took a nap. I wanted to, but wasn't quite tired enough. I stayed up with the baby and made a few phone calls.

Once Melissa woke up we started wrapping presents to the sound of Christmas music. Harry Connick, Jr., Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Frank Sinatra are taking turns in the CD changer. (Note to self: buy a Dolly Parton Christmas CD. And find the Aaron Neville CD.)

We've got about a dozen presents wrapped. Melissa finished off her part of the Christmast letter this morning, and formatted the whole thing to fit on the Christmas stationary she bought. Christmas is getting closer and closer.

Laurel and Hardy Wish You a Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas from the Joneses

How time flies. Here's Katie's Santa picture from last year.

Merry Christmas (Observed)

Why Star Wars Geeks are Cranky at the Holidays

1. They don't show the Star Wars Holiday Special anymore.
2. Stores start putting up Christmas decorations before Life Day is even over.

Happy belated Life Day, all.

Friendsville, TN Christmas Parade 2006 (AKA Katie Day 802 - First Parade)

Katie and I set up at the beginning of the parade route. Her charisma and Christmas outfit got her all kinds of candy.

Friendsville now has a Wikipedia entry, though it doesn't explain the town's name. It was named for the Quakers who once lived there, the Religious Society of Friends being the proper name for Quakers.

The Friends established the Friendsville Academy, which building still stands in downtown Friendsville. Less well-known was their 1854 Newberry Female School and the Freedman's Institute for educating free blacks. That school was open from 1872 to 1901, and was on the land now occupied by Maryville High School. A little more trivia: the current site of the McAmmon-Ammons-Click funeral home in downtown Maryville was originally the East Tennessee Masonic Institute for Women. The current municipal building was once the site of Pride Mansion, which was converted to a teacher's academy with funding from Philadelphia and Baltimore Friends.

Blount County bonus! - Joe McCord now has his own Wikipedia entry.

See also:
- G.M. Miser Grocery Store on Miser Station Road

Back from Black Friday

We did the Black Friday thing again. Nice way to get in the holiday spirit, save some money, and get a jump on Christmas shopping.

Toys R Us - We started here at 6:00 am. Incredibly long line - at least 100 feet if not more. Aisles so clogged you could barely get a cart through. No deals in sight. The Fisher Price Learning Cycle we want for Katie was $89 last week at Wal-Mart. On Black Friday Toys R Us had it for the incredible low price of ... $99. Never again.

Old Navy - Short lines, 50% off sales. Totally worth it.

Kohl's - Fairly long lines but not too bad. Lots of 50% off sales, including most of their toys. Worth it.

Belk's - Short lines, lots of sales and early bird specials. $25 off coupons in the newspaper. Melissa bought a $143 coat and a top for $53. Totally worth it.

Presents bought: Natalie, Katie, Connie, Eric, Geneva, Hazel, Larissa. A couple of clothes for each of us, and a new comforter. Not bad for a morning's haul.

LATER: Melissa went to Target and found some great deals and picked up more kids presents and kids and grownup DVDs (she bought The Departed and 300 for less than $5 each).

More Christmas Gift Ideas for the Vision-Impaired

Three Christmases ago I made a list of gifts for people with poor vision. The other day someone posted in comments asking for more ideas, so here are some thoughts on what we've found helpful.

Living Solutions oversized TV remote controls are extremely helpful. Walgreen's sells them around Christmas and Mother's Day. The remote itself is so big it's hard to lose, and the big buttons are easy to see.

My mom's vision is so far gone due to macular degeneration she can't even read the oversized numbers, but she likes hers for another reason. Mom locates buttons on the remote by memorizing their location - she starts in one corner of the remote and counts down and over so many buttons. Her TV's original remote (shown in the picture) has small buttons of differing sizes arranged in an artistic fashion that she found difficult to navigate. The buttons on the Living Solutions remote are large, consistent in size, and are laid out in a checkerboard grid of rows and columns that she finds easy to follow.

Here's an inexpensive and useful gift - stick-on, raised dots. Mom can't read the dials on appliances, so we mark them for her with raised dots. We've placed dots on the timer dial of her microwave for the five minute mark, and on her oven dials for the medium heat setting. The washing machine has dots for the water level, temperature, and duration settings she uses. Melissa puts one, two, or three dots on the caps of mom's prescription bottles so she'll know how many times to take the medicine each day. You can see an orange dot on the smaller remote control in the picture.

You can find stick-on dots in the hardware section of your department store. They're sold alongside the felt pads you put inside kitchen cabinet doors and the sliders that go under furniture legs.

Melissa has started buying mom books on tape (or actually CD) and mom's enjoyed those.

The talking watch from a few years ago was a big hit and is almost indispensable. The first one quit working so mom now has another one. If you know someone with poor vision a talking watch is a surefire hit.

Word of the Day: Christmas Adam

From Urban Dictionary:

December 23, 2007: Christmas Adam

The day before Christmas Eve. Since Adam was created before Eve, and the need to be equitable in the holiday season, Christmas Adam creates further anticipation of Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas 2007

Notice the lack of Christmas tree ornaments down in The Natalie Zone. We did the same thing two years ago for Katie. It'll be nice to be able to cover the tree in ornaments without them getting broken, but I love little Natalie at this age. And I love little Katie at her age, too.

This is the first year we haven't traveled on Christmas Day. We visited the Kingsport side of the family last weekend, so we got to stay at home and the kids got to play with their presents.

This Thanksgiving and Christmas have been the best we've had since we started dating. Some of the family issues of who eats where on what day have been ironed out, people have gotten used to us as husband and wife who shoulder big parts of the holidays, and we've gotten better at shouldering those parts. Melissa was an absolute kitchen goddess this year, making Christmas Eve dinner for 15 people followed by a Christmas Day brunch.

Surprise Christmas Gift Hit of 2007

My mom bought a beanbag chair to keep in her mother-in-law apartment for the girls to sit on. The girls love it.

When it was over on our side of the house on Christmas morning Melissa and I realized it made a great foot rest. I see us buying one for the den and maybe the living room. It's the non-toy Christmas hit of 2007.

Word of the Day: Boxing Day

I'm posting this a day late, but it's still topical, right? From Phrase of the Week:

Meaning

The 26th of December, also called St. Stephen's Day.

Boxing Day is a public holiday that forms part of the Christmas festivities in most of the countries that were once part of the British Empire. It was originally the first working day after Christmas Day, but is now always celebrated on December 26th, regardless of which day of the week it falls.

Origin

Christmas boxes were originally literally earthenware boxes. In mediaeval England, these boxes were used by the poor (servants, apprentices etc.) to save money throughout the year. At Christmas, the boxes were broken open and the savings shared to fund Christmas festivities. This meaning of Christmas box dates back to at least the early 17th century. The boxes were known in France as tirelire and are referred to in Randle Cotgrave's A Dictionarie of the French and English tongues, 1611:

"Tirelire, a Christmas box; a box having a cleft on the lid, or in the side, for money to enter it; used in France by begging Fryers, and here by Butlers, and Prentices, etc."

Lots more on the origins of the name at that link.

Previous WOTD - Christmas Adam

Valentine's Day Countdown

It's three weeks away. More of those pics from Hwy. 129 here.

A John Hartford Tune for Valentine's Day

First Girl I Ever Loved

I was in love with you, well-before I knew,
it meant more than just wanting to be with you
I used to look for other girls that looked like you

But the laws of nature said, ‘forget it, son’
‘least that’s what somebody told me
I worried about it a little bit, but that’s all

I dreamt that you were Joan-of Arc
And I was Don Quixote
And everywhere we went the world was tin-foil

But I gave up dreaming, and became a priest
It put it right out of my system
I worried about it a little bit, but that’s all

Now you used to play the guitar
We worked in a country band
I hung out down on the river bank, on Sunday
Your brother was my closest friend,
he drove a pickup truck
he used to bring me home sometimes, from high school

Now I was fifteen, oh the very first time
Love broke completely inside me
We were young, and we were learning about it together

And we had enough of what we thought we’d need
Of those well-known secret fables
We worried about it a little bit, but that’s all

I regret my life won’t be long enough
To make love to all the women that I’d like to
Or least of all, to live with the ones I’ve loved

And I’ve never regretted a love affair,
except one and that’s all over
I worried about it a little bit, but that’s all

Now I heard you lived a-way up north
Your kids are fat and plenty
And I haven’t seen your brother since a-way last Easter

And if every other girl in the whole wide world
Was just a little bit more like you
I’d worry about it a little bit, but that’s all

Now you used to play the guitar
We worked in a country band
We hung out down on the river bank, on Sunday
Your brother was my closest friend,
he drove a pickup truck
he used to bring me home sometimes, from high school

Happy Birthday to St. Patrick's Day Babies

Happy birthday to Michael Silence's daughter, McKinley.

Happy birthday to my father-in-law, Charlie.

And happy birthday to my grandmother-in-law, Geneva.

2008 Easter Earliest Since 1913

From Timeanddate.com:

For the first time in nearly 100 years Easter is coming at its earliest on Sunday, March 23, 2008. The last time Easter Sunday fell on March 23 was in 1913. However, Easter can occur earlier than March 23. The earliest Easter ever recorded in the Gregorian calendar from 1753 onwards was on March 22, both in 1761 and 1818.

The next time Easter occurs on March 23 will not be until 2160, and a March 22 Easter will not happen until the year 2285.

Follow the link for an explanation of how the Easter date is determined. The variable date of Easter and subsequent events like Palm Sunday is the reason for the moveable feast.

Katie and Natalie Easter Pictures 2008

We had the pictures done at Portrait Innovations. Cost was $15 per sheet, or three sheets of the same pose for $16.95. They're very good at dealing with small children and were amazingly cheerful. You preview the photos on big screen Pioneer HDTVs and choose the ones you want.

It's always bugged me that other portrait studios never provided a CD of the pictures. I was impressed that Portrait Innovations does and at no charge. The 606 x 404 pixel resolution is too low for printing, but fine for Web pages and email.