Holidays thoughts are in the air.
Mostly bemoaning how early commercial America thrusts them into our faces, to separate us from our cash.
But we’re talking about holidays, whatever the motivation.
My daughter will be home Wednesday, the 21st.
Must make meatballs for her; she loves them. And show off my new Hot Pot recipe. (Find it on the website.)

Talking to one of my adult sons about Christmases past.
One of his shining memories is of going to church.
Of all things.

We were not a particularly religious family, although, like most of us, tending to the higher holidays and participating in all the rites of passage.

To the question, “Who are Roman Catholics?” our hands went up.
And we lived in the North End.
And yet, for a few years, we attended 10.00am Christmas Mass at the Advent Episcopal Church on Beacon Hill, followed by brunch at the Ritz Carlton hotel.
And this ritual, Mass first, remains one of his fondest memories.
Sweet.

Recently, when I asked my cousin and dear friend, Lauren, what she would like to do this season, ‘season’ including the glitzy New Year’s eve dinner out, her first thought was Mass at our now favorite Church, the Roman Catholic Paulist Center on Park Street, at the Boston Common.
Followed by brunch at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Two conversations.
Two first-echelon memories of attending High Mass.
Edifying.

To the grinches who may point to a fun meal following as the tail that wagged the dog, I say, “Humbug!”
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Tagging Today
Friday, November 16, 2018
My 218th consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am.
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 47 with heavy morning rain.

Dinner is leftover Beef Stew.

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Question of the Day:
What is the Christmas Season?

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Love your notes.
Contact me @ domcapossela@hotmail.com

Tommie Toner weighing in on the value of dinnertime in a group or alone:

I love your dinner vogue.
The same for me.
Dinner is a special time even when alone at the beach.
I always require candle light even with hamburgers!
Dinner is special.  

Web Meister Responds: Amen! to that.

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Answer to Question of Day:
The Christmas season or the holiday season (often simply called the holidays), is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and Western-influenced countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January.

It is defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals.
It also is associated with a period of shopping which comprises a peak season for the retail sector (the "Christmas (or holiday) shopping season"), and a period of sales at the end of the season (the "January sales").
Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies when trees decorated with ornaments and light bulbs are illuminated, are traditions in many areas.

In the denominations of Western Christianity, the term "Christmas season" is considered synonymous with Christmastide, a term associated with Yuletide, which runs from December 25 (Christmas Day) to January 5 (Epiphany Eve), popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas.

However, as the economic impact involving the anticipatory lead-up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Christmas season" began to become synonymous instead with the traditional Christian Advent season, the period observed in Western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until Christmas Day itself.
The term "Advent calendar" survives in secular Western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December.

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Short Takes: November 16, Friday
Gallery of Advent Calendars

I loved Advent Calendars as much as Christmas Trees.
I enjoyed picking out a new one each year.

Left:
An Advent calendar with a nativity scene behind the 24th door,
surrounded by other Advent, Christmas and Christian symbols
Turris Davidica - Own work

Second from left:
Advent calendar from Im Lande des Christkinds.
The windows contain Christmas poems. Images, from a cut-out sheet, were pasted over them.Richard Ernst Kepler - Bild: [1] / Infos: [2] mit Abbildungen (beklebt und unbeklebt): Adventskalender im Wandel der Zeit, (Hg.: Markus Mergenthaler) Verlag J. H. Röll 2007 ISBN 978-3-89754-279-2 S. 14 

Second from right:
A home-made Advent calendar featuring presents
Andrea Schaufler - Own work 

Right:
Two girls try to open a massive Advent calendar at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin.
BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada - A few hours too early

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Beginning in the mid-20th century, as the Christian-associated Christmas holiday became increasingly secularized and central to American economics and culture while religio-multicultural sensitivity rose, generic references to the season that omitted the word "Christmas" became

more common in the corporate and public sphere of the United States, which has caused a semantics controversy that continues to the present.
By the late 20th century, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and the new African American cultural holiday of Kwanzaa began to be considered in the U.S. as being part of the "holiday season", a term that as of 2013 has become equally or more prevalent than "Christmas season" in U.S. sources to refer to the end-of-the-year festive period.

"Holiday season" has also spread in varying degrees to Canada; however, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the phrase "holiday season" is not widely synonymous with the Christmas–New Year period, and is often instead associated with summer holidays.

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Good morning on this Friday, November 16
I liked doing this piece:
Christmas is coming, bring with it the greater holiday season including Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and madhouse shopping; related television shows, and store windows; good will and blockbuster movies. With a note from Tommie Toner to help with the cold.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

Enjoy this wonderfully joyous season, my friends, a mask with which to hide the painful truth: it leaves in its wake a horribly wearing winter season.

See you soon.

Love

Dom