Traditions
Traditions….
What are your family traditions for the holidays?
What are your personal
traditions that you do for your family?
We just had a great demonstration on turning Christmas
ornaments last month. Do you
make ornaments for each of your children or grand children each
year? Or possibly turn
snowmen or Christmas trees for your wife or family or for all your
close friends? We, at the
Marshall
house, do have family traditions and for Thanksgiving some of these
have become deeply rooted in our nuclear family.
One of our lamest traditions
is the family viewing of Chevy Chases’
Christmas Vacation
movie Thanksgiving night. We
have nearly every line of dialog committed to memory by now.
Another tradition is that my
daughters like having Thanksgiving dinner here at our home in
Fort Worth.
Oh yeah, we’ve gone back to
Kansas
and have celebrated Thanksgiving there…but its just not the same,
the girls say. Some of
our traditions are relatively new.
We now participate in the Westside YMCA’s annual Turkey Trot
and our nuclear family has expanded to include boyfriends, college
roommates, and the like. Immediately
following the Turkey Trot, we head home to feast on a breakfast of
crepes, fresh fruit and espresso.
I like our grown-up traditions…. they’re delicious!
Some of our traditions get retired… thrown out… axed.
Tracy is tired of one
Marshall tradition…the white-trash table extension that we have used
for years (1/2 plywood sheet
on rickety legs pushed up against the real dining table and covered
with a large table cloth.
Hey, it works!) Needless
to say, I haven’t been turning much these past few weeks as I am in
the process of making a new extending dining table to seat all these
people this Thanksgiving.
I want
to finish my table project soon as I do want to start a new
tradition that involves turning. And I hope that each of you will also take it upon yourselves to join me
in this tradition. The
upcoming holidays are a great time to spend with family (sans the
jack-ass brother in-law) but it is also a great time to help others
in need in our community.
This year, during the Thanksgiving weekend, I am committing
myself to turn, at least, two bowls or platters or goblets for our
Club’s philanthropy, Empty Bowls. If
every one of our Club members did this, we’d have close to 300 items
to donate to Empty Bowls! Think
of how many meals we could help supply!
Our
November meeting is scheduled earlier this month due to the holiday.
We’ll be meeting this Thursday, November 17, and not on
Thanksgiving Day. Don’t
plan on showing up at the community center on Thanksgiving Day
planning on seeing things spin on a lathe.
We won’t be there. But
if you get sick and tired of all the house guests, relatives, and
that one, really annoying brother-in-law on Thanksgiving Day....feel
free to use a “Club meeting”
excuse just to get out of the house.
Right around the
corner is our upcoming Woodturners of North Texas holiday dinner
scheduled for Saturday, December 10 (see details in this newsletter)
and we want every one to come and have a great time, feast on some
delicious food, and socialize with your fellow wood turners and
families. This year, we
are strongly encouraging all our Club members that are planning on
attending our holiday dinner to donate an Empty Bowl as admission
price to the dinner.
Along with door prizes and a woodturning raffle, another huge aspect
of the evening is a live auction of woodturnings that Club members
have turned and donated. We
ask
all of you to consider
turning a high-quality item and donating it to be auctioned off this
night. We then want you
to pry open up that wallet of yours and bid on these great pieces.
It’s a fantastic opportunity to fill-out your personal art
collection or to purchase unique, hand-crafted items as gifts for
your really good friends.
As
you can see, there are tons of reasons why you should all head out
to the shop and start turning! The
Club, Empty Bowls, and the auction all need your support and
donations. And for
these… we thank you.
Good shavings to all,
Dave Marshall