I first encountered Boxing Day when I lived in Botswana, a former British Colony. If you’d like to do a little quick research into this custom, here are two good sites. Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and many other members of the Commonwealth of…
Around the world in less than 80 years and back to the Midwest again. From girlhood atop a big hill to maturing into an all-around creative type. I now focus on writing and making books and maintain an this online weblog (blog) Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century (www.riehlife.com) where 400 faithful readers…
To greet you today, I’m offering you some links as gifts. For the meaning of the lighting the darkness at Solstice, read Susan J. Tweit’s Community of the Land’s post on how Luminarias light the night. I agree…nothing like rows on rows of luminarias and the smell of pinon under the startling clarity of a…
One of my favorite parts of the holiday season, from childhood on, has been my holiday stocking. As a child they were mainly filled with things that seem unexceptional now, such as navel oranges and nuts. The Queen of Stocking Stuffers in my life was my former mother-in-law Eileen Souder. Girl, could she ever stuff…
Janean sent this blended memory from her childhood that made its way into a recent conversation with her older son. Today, my first big snow day in St. Louis, seemed like a good day to post this. When we were growing up on the homeplace in rural Illinois, on the bluffs above the river, all…
Both my father and I are Holiday Drop-outs, lying low for the most part until after New Year’s Day when the world turns back to sanity. Our holiday spirit is a quiet one…dedicated to continuing to do the things we usually do…and keeping it all on a small, human scale. Last night was one of…
My father, Erwin A. Thompson, in his paper sorting, found this gem among my mother’s papers. He says, “It could come out of any textbook, and still has some personal touches not found in them.” He goes on to make these comments: “These were not idle words. I listened to her stories of the children…
My father, with typical generosity, is setting up a revolving loan fund at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois. When I was growing up this was a girl’s school called “Monticello” and underneath its current layer there will always be this other layer for me…what I term the archeology of memory and emotion….
This set of holidays I turned the pages of my seasonal calendar by the decor in the Denver airport. On the way out West…Thanksgiving and then two weeks later, all reindeer, pine trees, red balls, and poinsettas. We don’t have peace wrapped with a bow under our trees for Christmas, honorable or otherwise, but we…
I asked my father, who in the Second World War was Sergeant Erwin A. Thompson, “I” Company, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, First Army to write a post honoring Pearl Harbor Day. My father is a man who served in that war and still has scars around his scrapnel wounds to prove it. I know, because…