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Big things in tiny spaces

Aztec temple, Spanish church, Apartment building

Winston Churchill once commented that the Balkans were so violent because they “produce more history than they consume.” CDMX produces a lot of history, too, and sometimes it is very concentrated. We visited two of its most densely packed historical sites today: Three Cultures Square and Tepeyac.

I expected the visit to Three Cultures Square to be a simple photo op: yes, you can grab an image with pre-modern (Aztec), modern (Spanish colonial) and post-modern (1960’s) structures in it. But as we toured the site, I came to realize just how much history was jam-packed into it.

First, it was the site of the Aztec town of Tlatelolco, where Moctezuma appeared before his people begging them not to attack the conquistadores. Instead, the Aztecs turned on Moctezuma and stoned him, resulting in his eventual death. There also the final Aztec chief, Cuauhtémoc fought and lost the final battle against Cortés, resulting in the end of the Aztec empire.

When the Spanish built this church there, it was the site of the baptism of a indigenous man who took the Christian name Juan Diego…more on him later.

Church of Santiago
Juan Diego’s baptismal fount

In 1968, students and workers protested against the corruption evident in the run-up to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Military and police opened fire on them in this same square, killing between 300-400 on the eve of the opening ceremonies.

Finally, the apartment blocs lining the square collapsed during the 1985 earthquake, again killing hundreds in the neighborhood.

Quite a lot of history in a space a little larger than a soccer pitch. Its like the Boston Tea Party, Gettysburg, and Kent State all happened on the same spot.

Later in the morning we went to Tepeyac, better known as the hill on which the Virgin Mary (our Lady of Guadalupe) appeared to Juan Diego (yes, that Juan Diego), which I covered here. Now we’ve been to Rome, Jerusalem, Lourdes, and Fatima, and we have never seen a denser pack of churches than around the grounds of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

yes, its sinking
The new & old basilicas
The Indians’ Church
The Church of the well
A Chapel just to “swear off” something
The original church on the hill

One cannot overstate the Mexican people’s deep devotion to this Marian apparition. As our tour guide put it, not all Mexicans are Catholic (80% are), but all Mexicans are Guadalupanos (or devotees of Our Lady). Any time of day or night, you’ll find common folk working their way across the central plaza of the Basilica…on their knees. During the days immediately before the annual feast of La Guadalupana (12 December), almost 11 million people visited the shrine, again in a space about the size of your average mall in the States.

I counted seven different churches, including the original chapel directed to be built by Our Lady, and the second, larger church which is sinking into that soft lake bed which underlies most of CDMX. Mexican families come for the day: there is always a Mass underway, there were long lines for confessions, and people celebrating marriages, good fortunes, or just giving thanks.

Look closely & you can see the cracks
Church of the well is…
moving away

One can always visit the famous tilma, the cloak on which the image of the Virgin appeared, by standing on a series of motorized walkways that take you slowly past; there is always a short line. The tilma is out of reach, as it has already survived an acid attack and 29 sticks of dynamite!

The tilma
A candle stand after 29 sticks of dynamite
Close up

The grounds of the Basilica are not large, but they are full of churches, chapels, images to place votive candles, and a few tastefully obscured shops. Of course, just outside the grounds are all the plastic religious gee-gaws one could want. Looking at the various sculptures and watching Mexican families enjoy their visits, you can see just how much this particular icon means to all of them.

Juan Diego, in roman garb…doesn’t he look classical?
Another Juan Diego, with tilma
A pictorial representation of the peoples and their Mother

Another big thing in a very small space.

“You didn’t build that!”

Teotihuacan was on the agenda for today. It is hard to grasp the size and scope of this development, but I hope these pics and video give some perspective.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Teotihuacan is how little we really know about it. We don’t know it’s name; Teotihuacan is just what the Aztecs called it. It means “city of the gods” since the Aztecs found it abandoned and assumed the gods must have built it. We don’t know who really built it, as it predates the Meso-american societies we have named but is more advanced than the unidentified ones. We know the Aztecs came from Tenochtitlan to hold religious services in Teotihuacan, and we know the conquistadors named one area “the citadel” because they thought it resembled a ready-made fort.

Archaeologists thought Teotihuacan had astronomical associations based on its location and orientation, so they called the largest pyramid the temple of the sun and the next largest the temple of the moon. Once excavated, they determined both were dedicated to Meso-american gods: Tlaloc and some unknown female counterpart. They estimate one-quarter of a million people lived in and around the complex, but we don’t know what happened to them.

View from atop the temple of the sun, the largest pyramid

The pyramid steps are highly irregular and steep. Most have no handrails; some have a steel cable on which to grab hold. At various levels there are plateaus, where the lines to climb snake back and forth. There are no guardrails. I saw whole families, from grandparents to small children, clambering up the pyramid. From the video, you get a sense of the crowds. There are no signs, no park rangers, no one overseeing safety. Yet I saw no one fall, and everybody seemed to be looking out for everyone else. One way to ensure safety is to make more rules, emplace more equipment, hire more inspectors. Another is to make people responsible for themselves.

As to the title of this post? Well you’ll recall President Obama’s comment that ‘if you own a business, you didn’t build that.’ In the case of the Aztecs and Teotihuacan, it’s true!

Getting history right

We visited the National Museum of Anthropology; random thoughts follow:

Mexico does a good job of memorializing its distant past. The story of the Olmecs, Toltecs, Aztecs, Maya, and others are all captured in a single museum, with each culture given its own hall tracing its origins, rise, and destiny.

Tláloc, reclining, with the pumping station/gallery behind

Likewise, Mexico City made a major effort to add art to its public spaces in the past twenty years, and art drawing on its indigenous roots is featured. One great example of this is Diego Rivera’s statute of the rain god Tláloc, which is situated at the mouth of the Lerma river up on the Chapultepec heights overlooking the city. The pumping station there is set up like a mini-gallery of Rivera’s work, along with a chime system whereby the wind, the water, and pumps all combine to make music.

The Anthropology museum is huge. The central atrium contains this stunning pillar which uses rain water to generate a continuous fountain. The pillar is full of symbols celebrating the merger of Mexico’s indigenous and Spanish past.

While the vast majority of the artifacts on display are originals, there are recreations of some of the temples done is actual size.

Actual jade burial mask of Mayan ruler Pakal

Re-creation of Aztec temple decoration (life size)

There was no sugar coating, and the museum is constantly updating its displays based on new research. For an example of the former, the blood-thirsty nature of Meso-american culture is on full display, from skeletons of human sacrifice victims to discussions about the importance of slavery to the growth of these empires. There is none of the noble savage gloss which sometimes colors other North American histories of the Amerindian cultures.

As for keeping up-to-date, the museum noted new research which shows the Maya were quite adept at human sacrifice (a recent change, whereas previously they were considered more humane), and that the Aztec calendar we have all seen is not a calendar, but an Aztec representation of the universe. The museum is yet to capture some of the interesting, very recent finds in the Yucatán about the size and spread of the Mayan empire. But that is very recent, and we don’t really know how much will change as a result of the LIDAR (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) of the Yucatán, although it looks like our previous estimates on the Mayan population were off by a factor of ten.

More from what the Aztecs called “the city of the gods” tomorrow.

Ciudad de México

Live blogging from the Mexican capital, Ciudad de México, or México City as you know it. We’ll be here all week, and I will try to give you a sense of this massive, historical, and vibrant city.

But first, let’s clear up some confusion. All over México, you will see signs–along the highway, in the airport–pointing you toward…México! You may ask yourself, “how did I get here?” and you may say to yourself “this is not my casa!” (Apologies to the Talking Heads).

Here is the short answer: México is the name of a city, and a state, and a country. Ciudad de México is the capital of the country of Mexico. It is surrounded by the state of México, but is not within it. In fact, the capital of the state of Mexico is Toluca. Got that?

Mexicans refer to the capital as just “México” but they mean the city. The city used to be in something called the Distrito Federal or DF, which was akin to DC in the States. So old-timers may call it the DF, but the new appellation is CDMX.

CDMX is the political, historical, and cultural center of the nation and an overwhelming influence on México. At between 25 and 30 million people, it dwarfs Guadalajara, México’s second city, and is either the largest or second largest in the western hemisphere (Sao Paulo, another uncountable metropolis, is the competitor).

The city was built (literally) on the ruins of the Mexica (Aztec) capital Tenochtitlan. I’ll cover all this in more detail as we visit, but one amazing point is Tenochtitlan was built on a man-made series of islands in a great freshwater lake. Practically nothing of the original lake remains, but the unsteady foundations of a lake bed remain a challenge to the skyscrapers that increasingly mark the CDMX skyline.

Did I mention the volcanos and earthquake faults? More on that later!

Los animales de la ribera de Chapala

Simply “the animals of lakeside, ” if you’ve forgotten your high school Spanish.

Living in a relatively rural area, you become accustomed to the presence of animals. After a while. you don’t notice even the largest animals, or animals in the most unusual of places. So I made an effort to capture photos of the many animals I would otherwise not even notice because, well, they’re everywhere.

Horses (and donkeys) must be first on the list, as vaqueros (cowboys) originated in Mexico and are still seen throughout the countryside and small towns. They handle the local traffic very well, and generally yield the right-of-way. Sometimes you’ll see distracted riding (with cell phone), but if you want to avoid driving under the influence, just ride your horse to the beer store!

And a Miller lite, for my horse, por favor!

I’ll just tuck my horse behind the tuba in the parade, and no one will ever notice!

Dogs show up everywhere. This little guy has been holding down guard next to my development for several weeks now. They also show up on local roofs, and of course in front of the meat market!

Goats make less regular appearances. Most often you find them grazing beside the road, but several times a year they are headed to (well, be) lunch (i.e., birria).

Crossed the road, but refused to explain why…

Chickens here are really tough. There’s a flock out front of our development along the carretera (main road). They co-exist peacefully with the street dogs, who learned long ago that while a dog may win a one-on-one battle with a rooster, the prize isn’t worth the fight.

We have a large selection of literal snow-birds, in this case Pelicans. Thousands over-winter at the town of Petatán on the other side of the lake. This small pod (collective noun for pelicans) chose to stay at our club, which is less crowded and far more posh!

You can find more exotic birds, too. Here are some roof Peacocks: not very good as guard birds, but beautiful nonetheless.

Finally, you see plenty of cows. Like NOB, they are generally behind fences, but the median strip and road sides are public right-of-ways, full of grass. So it is not uncommon to find cows adjacent to, in the middle of, or crossing busy roads. This is especially true in the early morning, and at night. Which is why the expat lore is “never drive at night in Mexico.” Some think that’s because of the danger of criminal or gang violence; au contraire, the danger is several tons of Mexican beef ambling across your lane in the dark!

When the levee breaks

Watching the change of seasons NOB, I was getting ready to make my annual “*sigh*, it’s so boring lakeside, what with the warm dry weather, sunlight, and tropical flora” post. I still may post that eventually, along with an appropriate pool shot (over my feet) with a margarita. But as I prepared to write it, I thought about the fact I live on Lake Chapala, and rarely ever mention it.

That is not unusual, as Judy & I are not “active water people.” If we go to a beach, it’s to lie under a palapa, drink margaritas, and read books. If we go to a pool, we mill about in the water for a few minutes to cool off. We don’t swim laps, we don’t tan. If we visit a lake or stream, we take some photos, but we don’t fish or go swimming. We did win–during a charity auction–a small-boat lunch cruise on Lake Chapala, so sometime soon we’ll report back on that.

Still the lake has a major effect on us (Note: it affects us. It has an effect on us. It does not impact us, unless someone drops a meteor into the lake, whereupon waves would then wash over our house. Sorry, the use of “impact” in TV English, to the detriment of affect/effect, drives me to distraction). The lake has a moderating influence on our climate: we’re generally 5-10 degrees (F) warmer than Guadalajara in the winter, and the same but cooler in the summer. Essentially, the lake creates the micro-climate which makes living lakeside so pleasant, year-round.

There is a running debate about the quality of the lake’s water. Locals swim and boat and fish in it: that much is clear. Some expats are outraged when they see sewage runoff entering the lake, but perhaps they don’t know that that happens in every body of water. Routine testing of the lake’s quality shows it to be above the standards set by the US EPA. Still, there’s little recreational boating, so what’s with that?

The level of Lake Chapala varies greatly. It is fed by the Rio Lerma (to the east), where a series of upstream dams sequester water for agricultural uses. So the lake only gains water when the farms already have enough and/or the levees are full. We can tell when the levees release water, as the amount of lirio, a freshwater aquatic weed, increase rapidly. Many years past, the lake also drained out via the Rio Santiago, but I am told the lake level no longer supports such drainage. Instead, the main loss of lake water comes from pipes which feed the growing demand of Guadalajara, or simple evaporation, which is a major source of loss in a such a hot, dry environment. On any normal day, you can see a haze hovering over the lake which is simply the amount of water vapor leaving it. The shallow and wide nature of the lake contribute to this effect.

In Mexico, land recovered when water recedes is public land: it belongs to the government. When the lake is particularly low, large swaths of fertile land appear. Of course, the government is unprepared to claim such land, so enterprising Mexicans do so. Farmers plant on it; cattlemen place herds on it. Locals create walking trails which provide a glimpse of the houses of the rich and famous from an unusual angle (lakeside) where there generally are no privacy walls. I’m told someone even built a off-road, dirt racing strip on a sizable patch of muddy shore, once. Folks fence their efforts in, run bootleg power lines, even build small structures.

Then the lake rises, and all this is inundated. You might even say, “impacted.” Would you swim/water ski/sail over shallows which might contain, oh, power lines? barbed wire? a roof? Locals do, but must most expats shy away.

We had a strong rainy season this year, meaning Lake Chapala is at a 40 year high. The strange thing is, the rainy season ended back in October, and we’ve had several rain storms since. We even had some cloudy days, and the temperature hit (dramatic drum roll please) 59 degree F. Locals were wearing ski jackets, stocking caps, and gloves. Expats were fully dressed, (¡Gracias a Dios!) for a change. I even saw a Canadian wearing long pants!

My development has a boat dock and a seawall which measures about 15 feet. Usually, the lake is off the seawall during the dry season, although it sometimes climbs on to the seawall during the rainy season.

As you can see, the seawall has been over-topped!

The gates on the boat ramp are mostly underwater, too.

My own dog photo-bombed me. You can’t trust anyone!

The lirio show how high the water gets when a wind creates some waves. The lake appears to be at or near a 40 year high, which is all to the good.

Since you suffered through all this, here’s a musical interlude to see you off, courtesy of Led Zeppelin (very bluesy):

Don’t be him…or her!

Right now you’re probably in the middle of the annual Thanksgiving gathering of friends and family. If you’re reading this, you probably should PUT DOWN THE DEVICE AND TALK TO REAL PEOPLE WHO HAVE TRAVELED FAR JUST TO BE WITH YOU. Or perhaps you’re hiding in the bedroom or bathroom just to get away from the same people (yes, everyone does it).

If so, you’ve certainly run into that dear old friend or distant relation who holds, shall we say, unorthodox views, and always finds a way to start talking about them. “You know they faked (the moon landing/9-11 attack/Kennedy assassination)?” he says out of nowhere, or she opines “(Trump/Pence/Clinton/Obama) is really the President because (bogus political website) said the election was illegitimate.” Maybe even “I heard (current scam product) can cure (cancer/erectile dysfunction/baldness).”

And the gathering is off to the races, rarely for the better.

Sorry, I have no suggestions for dealing with them. But I do have a plea: don’t be that person. “What!?!”–you say–you would never BE that person. And I admit, my friends (and I) would NEVER be the kind of dreadful bore who engages in such behavior in person.

But online, well, that’s another story, eh?

We all know people who are perfectly normal in the real world, but go all Jekyll-n-Hyde online. Yet the same norms of behavior apply. DHS rolled out the slogan “if you see something, say something” a few years back. When you’re online, it should be “if you see something, (think about it before you) say something.” So many otherwise reasonable people, with sharp minds and pleasant personalities, post/share/retweet the most ridiculous nonsense without ever checking it.

This is no less harmful than your crazy uncle who annually ruins your Thanksgiving ritual. You may think its different, because your online friends either do it, too, or just ignore you when you do it, but that’s what happens in person also!

Beside just complaining, I do have some suggestions.

First, ALWAYS remember that your online content is curated, that is, someone or something is feeding it to you. Facebook, Google, Instagram, whatever, all are designed to gather information about you (YOU are the product) and use that information to get you to use their service more, providing ever more information. They share things with you that they know you like or dislike, sometimes intensely. They will determine where your views are more extreme (on a relative spectrum) and feed you those “news items” just a little more extreme than yours. So remember, you’re being fed with a purpose. If you don’t believe me, give up all social media for a week and compare your blood pressure before and after.

Second, its OK to be partisan and visit nakedly partisan websites. It can be fun to read/see/hear your views put in their most strident and argumentative form. But unless every single person you know feels the same way (and if they do, you have a whole ‘nother, bigger problem), don’t share the content you find there. If you want to spend time on Breitbart or Occupy Democrats (to name but two), do so in the privacy of your home. Think of such visits as, ahem, self-stimulation: best if done in private and not to be mentioned at your next social gathering.

Third, whenever and wherever you see that fact/point/opinion that is so good/cool/convincing that you just have to share it, stop and check it out. Even if it comes from conventional media sources that you trust, check it out. There’s a reason every newspaper posts corrections every day. There are a wealth of websites to help you: Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, RealClearPolitics, Poynter, AmericanPressInstitute, WaPo’s Fact Checker and Fact Check @ NYT (all links provided).

Don’t just accept what you see there, either. I caught Snopes doing back-flips to defend an obviously anti-Christian/anti-Semitic video of grave desecration in Libya, and I read Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post claiming to be objective about euthanasia in the Netherlands while citing an uncle who was euthanized there! In general, fact check sites do a good job of objective fact-checking: did someone actually say the words in this quote, or are these data valid? On more nuanced issues, you must read between the lines.

Sounds like a lot of trouble, no? Why not just happily hit share and move on? Two reasons. First, remember your crazy uncle, the one we started out talking about? That’s what he does, only in person. You don’t want to be like him, even if it being online gives you the freedom to misbehave. Second, think of your friends. When you post things that are untrue, or ridiculous, or just inflammatory, you’re saying you don’t care enough to check first; it’s more important to get that fleeting sense of “aha!”

To borrow another slogan, “Just (don’t) do it!”

Thus ends my annual plea for online civility.

No go back and argue with your family, and enjoy every minute of it!

Buen Fin: this won’t End Well

One thing I do not miss during this time of year is: Black Friday. Now I don’t mean to upset those of you who religiously get up in the wee ours of the morning after Thanksgiving to enjoy yourself by fighting through a crowd of the similarly-motivated set upon buying things at insanely reduced prices. Everybody needs a hobby, and if shopping is yours, Black Friday is your Super Bowl.

To me, Black Friday always seemed like the last straw: a bacchanalia of unnecessary shopping and outrageous behavior fueled by advertising specifically designed to manipulate. So when we moved to Mexico, where they don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving, I assumed I would only see Black Friday from a distance, on my TV or computer screen.

I was wrong. Back in 2011, major Mexican retailers worked with the federal government (under Presidente Felipe Calderón) to establish a holiday devoted to: merchandise! They called it “Buen Fin” or literally “Good End”, a contraction of the common greeting “buen fin de semana” or “happy weekend.” They selected the third weekend in November, which precedes the annual celebration of the Mexican revolution, exploiting the long weekend as an opportunity for consumer spending. The government (and big business) saw it as way to stimulate the economy, and even moved forward the payment of Christmas bonuses to ensure workers had pesos to spend.

Buen Fin was this past weekend. The advertising is much less hyped than in the States, and the deals are much less extreme: more like Presidents’ day sales than Black Friday as we have come to know it. The consumer culture in Mexico is also less advanced. Credit is still a relatively new thing, and average Mexicans rarely purchase things they just “have to have” as opposed to need.

But you can see where Buen Fin is headed. It seems to grow year-by-year. The government consumer protection agency is now monitoring for scams associated with the holiday. Academic studies indicate Mexicans are increasingly using credit during Buen Fin and making only minimum monthly payments. I dread when Mexican retailers master the art of the extreme sales promotions with limited numbers of sale items available: orderly queuing is not exactly a Mexican national characteristic!

Lest you think Buen Fin just represents the spread of American consumer culture to its near southern neighbor, I think it is a far more universal trend. Have you ever heard of Singles Day? In China, the rise of consumerism and decline in marriages led to an unofficial holiday on November 11th. The combination of four “singles” on that date (11/11) was deemed auspicious by the many single Chinese men who could not find wives, so they began (as a joke, back in the 90’s) celebrating parties on that date. Once China’s economy took off, businesses seized on the holiday which is now the largest online/offline shopping day in the world, dwarfing both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And Singles Day is now spreading around Asia.

Singles Day has run into resistance in Europe, as the date coincides with Remembrance Day, honoring the dead of World War I and still a solemn occasion. But I wouldn’t bet against it in the long run. In the States, November 11th is also Veterans’ Day, an extension of the original US Remembrance Day. That didn’t stop stores in the States, who simply added flags to their ads and special discounts for service members and–voila–another chance to make money!

So if you want to avoid consumerism, you might need to find another planet, not another country. I wonder when the first big box store opens on the Moon?

Savvy Traveling

As someone who loves to travel, lives as an expat, and tries to be well-informed, I spend much time deciding where to go and when to visit. Security is always the overriding issue for me: I don’t care how cheap or comfortable or easy it is to go somewhere if I don’t feel safe in traveling there. On the internet and social media, I run across lots of opinion (mostly ill-informed), but also some fairly authoritative advice. One place I always check is the US Department of State (DoS) website for travel advisories. I have often encountered misunderstandings about the State Department warnings, so here is some (insider) guidance.

Our travel map: we need to hit a few more continents!

First, the purpose of the DoS site is general education. It is not meant to dissuade Americans from traveling: in fact, you’ll find State Department employees to be probably the most travel-friendly federal workers. They are interested in the rest of the world, and they want you to be, too. Neither is the site meant to be critical of foreign countries, or a comparison with the US. I often see folks opining on social media “what about gun violence in Chicago? Why don’t they talk about that?” Well, the State Department does not cover Chicago, and in fact, no federal agency is responsible for telling Americans where, when, or how to travel within the United States. Americans are free to go anywhere they want in the US, anytime.

Unfortunately, this leads some Americans to think they can go anywhere they want, anytime they want, throughout the entire world. Some think “I’m an American, who’s gonna mess with the US?” Others think “I’m just a friendly tourist, who’s gonna bother with me?” Maybe they just don’t think. Americans do things like backpack along the Iran-Iraq border, open the car window in a safari park, or tour authoritarian nightmares like North Korea. Note that I am not criticizing such folks, or suggesting they deserved what happened: just stating for the record what they did.

As an American traveling abroad, the US DoS is responsible for you. Did you know you should go online and enroll in the STEP program showing where you’re going and when you’ll be there, in case of a natural or man-made emergency, so the DoS can account for you? Few Americans do; in most cases it doesn’t matter.

The travel advisory website exists so that no American should ever travel without being forewarned about the risks. You may be well-read about international news, and know all about the how the regime in Turkey has a nasty habit of rounding up anybody (including Americans) it suspects of anti-government activity, or that terrorists there specifically target western tourists. You may already know the Philippine government has declared martial law in Mindanao, or what the rules about spitting are in Singapore. But in case you’re not that up-to-date, they are all noted on the appropriate DoS travel pages.

One insider tip: read carefully the entire section of the travel advisory, including where it explains the restrictions on the travel of US government personnel. Here is a screenshot example from my expat home of Jalisco:

If you just read the headline for my state (“reconsider travel”) you might think “whoa, not going there!” But if you read the entire thing, you’ll see the very detailed guidance on where US government employees can and can’t go. This is very important. DoS controls (for the most part) where US government employees can travel, and this very detailed guidance represents the specific information they have about what is dangerous. When you read the Jalisco guidance, you see that my town (Ajijic) has no restrictions, while some other places, roads, even businesses (like casinos or cantinas) are placed off limits.

So be a savvy–but nor scared–traveler. Read the DoS material and consider it in light of your own tolerance for safety. Don’t do stupid things you wouldn’t do at home. So many terrible travel tales begin with too many drinks the first night in country, an attempt to buy drugs because they are decriminalized where you are visiting, or just being out in the middle of the night in a place you don’t really know.

¡Que te vaya bien!

Early Thanksgiving

A few weeks back I covered our celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving. In our family, we also celebrate Early Thanksgiving. It started several years ago when we were trying to determine how to get our two daughters, their husbands and kids all together to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was always the big family celebration for us. Birthdays were quiet affairs, Christmas is mostly a religious holiday with some small gifts exchanged on the Eve, but Thanksgiving was “all hands on deck.” Everybody was expected to attend. Everybody got to select one side dish and one dessert; this resulted in a surfeit of food, but great leftovers. Turkey was of course the main event. Judy took care of all the cooking, I did all the cleaning. Everybody ate once together around 3:00 in the afternoon, then watched football and noshed the rest of the day.

But traveling over the Thanksgiving weekend is such a hassle, and the weather can be treacherous. Stores or theaters and the like are crowded, and somebody has to host. Thanksgiving was more pressure-packed than festive. Then one year by circumstance we knew we could not gather that weekend, so we decided to get together the weekend of Veteran’s Day. It was a simple change with profound effects.

Need a rental place to gather? Plenty available that weekend. Airfares are reasonable, and there are no crazy crowds. Two weeks earlier in the season generally means better weather. Those who work can get time off because no one else is asking for it. We’ve done it thrice now with great results. Yes, there are some challenges. This year we couldn’t find a fresh turkey, since they weren’t being stocked two weeks early. The football offerings on Thursday and Friday were more limited. Otherwise, it was great time. And our movable feast frees up the kids to visit their in-laws for the regular one.

What’s with the trees? Honey, we’re not in Jalisco anymore!

We got a small taste of fall during our visit to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. By Friday the forecasted rain had turned to a light frost as the temps hovered in the thirties and a steady wind blew in. We still managed to do some hiking. Gramps (yo) got in several rounds of pillow fights, ping pong, and jumping monster with the grandkids. The latter is a peculiar game which involves Gramps covering himself with blankets, making monster noises, and engaging in world-wrestling style combat with the grandkids armed with pillows. It mostly devolves into my being beaten senseless while laughing hysterically.

Ian, Quinn, & Henry playing pool. Have to start them early.

A great time was had by all. If you go through the usual harangue of family holiday gatherings, consider moving the celebration. The most important aspect of such an event is to get together, and that’s the part that is the easiest, when you’re not part of the crowd.