Category: Holidays

New Year’s Eve Memories & Shenanigans!
Dancing · family · Friends · Holidays · My Thoughts

New Year’s Eve Memories & Shenanigans!

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment
Happy New Year Ev'es

New Year’s Eve 2021 is here! I always get nostalgic thinking of past New Year’s Eves, so I’d like to share some with you.

New Year’s Eve With Bub & Lela

My brother, Bub, and his wife, Lela were my favorite New Year’s Eve partiers! For a couple of years, we went out to a bar in Clearlake Oaks, California and danced to country and western music. They followed one band and became good friends with the whole band and their spouses, so it felt like family.

My sister-in-law, the perfect playmate, dressed up with me, and we sprayed glitter in our hair and out the door we went. After doing that a couple of years, we became known as the “Glitter Girls.”

When the bar closed, we often went to someone’s house to continue the party—being in our early thirties, we had the energy to stay up late, drink a lot and keep going. One year, we came home after the party at someone’s house and went through all their pictures. We finally went to bed around 5:00 AM.

One year, I rode out to California with a friend on Amtrak. We woke up New Year’s Eve morning in the party car, and we had a party day traveling to Sacramento.

Square & Round Dancing on This Night

When I started square dancing, I loved to dance on New Year’s Eve with the tradition of ending the year with a dance, then starting the new year with another one.

For a couple of years, my ex and I drove to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend Christmas with his brother and then attend a round dance festival at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina that ended on New Year’s Eve. During the festival before the holiday, Charlie Lovelace and Wayne and Barbara Blackford taught us some gorgeous higher-level dances. I loved being on the beach, too.

I had gotten into the habit of calling Mom in Colorado on New Year’s Eve—so, not thinking, I called her from Myrtle Beach when we got back to our room to wish her a “Happy New Year.” I didn’t realize it was late in Colorado, but she didn’t blink an eye! She was so glad to hear from me.

For several years, my ex and I went to Green Valley, Arizona, for New Year’s Eve. They served a delicious sit-down dinner, and then we square and round danced. We have so many friends in Arizona; it was a delight to celebrate with them there.

After Lin and I got together, we celebrated many years at the Albuquerque Square Dance Center with our Albuquerque square dance family. They got into the habit of observing the New York time of celebrating the New Year at 10:00 PM, our time, so we became used to an earlier night on New Year’s Eve.

Unique Night for New Year’s Eve

The most unique New Year’s Eve was Marshall Flippo’s last square dance in Green Valley, Arizona in 2017. About twenty-five callers came from all over the United States to see their mentor and friend call his last dance.

Flippo called a fun-filled dance. During the night, I saw groups of callers watching him on stage, emotions mixed for everyone.

During the amazing night, Flippo handpicked his music. He sang, “Another Square Dance Caller.” He shared a heartfelt thank you to everyone in attendance and ended his final dance with the song, “I’m Leaving Here a Better Man.” I’m sure that’s how he felt that night!

Larada Horner-Miller, Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo, (2020): 327.

What made that New Year’s Eve dance so unique—anyone there witnessed the end of an era with Flippo ending his square dance calling career. I felt honored to be there!

The Last Few Years on New year’s Eve

For a variety of health reasons of ours, we’ve been at-home the last few years on New Year’s Eve—not my idea of how to spend this holiday. And yes, during the pandemic last year we watched TV to ring in the new year.

Finally,

I enjoy celebrating the end of the current year and the anticipatory feelings of the new one coming. Putting on a silly paper hat, blowing a horn and throwing up confetti make me feel celebratory, but I love to observe this festive night dancing and being with friends.

Do you celebrate New Year’s Eve? If so, how? What is your favorite New Year’s Eve memory?

Here’s Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When Its Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? New Year's Eve meme

Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com

EXCITING NEWS HERE!

The Day After Christmas—Now What?
Christmas · Christmas · family · Friends · Holidays · My Thoughts

The Day After Christmas—Now What?

Larada Horner-Miller3 Comments
Girl sitting sad the day afer Christmas

The day after Christmas is here! Santa needs a vacation. Now, what? As a child, I focused on playing with my new toys on this day. As an adult, what do I do?

Looking Back

Looking back on my Christmas preparations, I created a calendar for a family gift. I wrote, designed and published our annual Christmas newsletter. Then, I sent cards to friends far and near. During Advent, I took part in a group who read Richard Rohr’s Preparing for Christmas, then we shared comments and remarks on WhatsApp because we had an international group participating. What a rewarding group that was!

Christmas Eve

Lin and Larada on Christmas Eve
Lin and Larada on Christmas Eve

I had an errands day in Albuquerque, getting a prescription and some groceries. At 5:00 pm, Lin and I virtually attended my church’s, Hope in the Desert Episcopal Church, Christmas Eve service. It started with “La Posada,” a Mexican tradition of the pregnant Mary and Joseph going house to house and being denied any lodging. The last home welcomes them in. In its simplicity, it was beautiful.

After the service, we ate Costa Rican tamales from Lin’s ex-wife and watched two traditional Christmas movies—“Scrooge” and “It’s a Beautiful Life.” Then we watched a contemporary movie on Amazon Prime with a strong Christian message.

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, we opened our gifts and ate blueberry empanadas from Pastian’s Bakery. After that we played two Cribbage games. Lin worked hard so I wouldn’t be skunked on Christmas Day—what a loving man! We ate a late lunch—honey-baked ham, cheesy cheddar potatoes, asparagus, and applesauce. Later, we enjoyed pecan pie. Lin added eggnog ice cream.

From that point on, Lin watched the two football games scheduled for Christmas day. That’s always shocking to me to have football at Christmas. I made a big batch of popcorn balls—my favorite Christmas goodies. I neglected to get my traditional baking in this year.

During the day, we both called friends we knew having a hard time this holiday: one who lost her dad this year and was alone, one who recently lost her husband of fifty-three years and another long-time friend in an assisted living facility. Sharing those calls made our day! We are so blessed to have each other!

The Day After Christmas

So, here we are the day after Christmas. Usually, mega commercials for after-Christmas sales dominate our TV viewing. I have seen none! Probably because the stores’ Christmas items were picked over weeks ago. I went to our grocery store on Friday, and there was hardly anything available. Is this because of shortages or supply chain irregularities because of the pandemic? Unusual, no matter what. Mom used to love to go to these sales, looking for great buys!

I’ve always enjoyed this day. As a child, I familiarized myself with my new toy. As a high school student, we stayed up late each night and watched Johnny Carson and later Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. Later, I savored the time with Dad and Mom, with stories and trips to the ranch. After my niece moved to Texas and came regularly to Branson, she arrived this day, and we looked forward to a few days of loud games at the round table with laughter and stories and trips to the ranch looking for wildlife.

Extended Christmas Season

Twelve Days of Christmas - day after Christmas

For me, just because Christmas Day is behind me, the Christmas season isn’t over. My church celebrates the “Twelve Days of Christmas” which ends on January 6 at Epiphany, “a Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epiphany

So, I keep wearing my Christmas outfits and enjoy extending the holiday. We don’t take our tree down until after Epiphany. I love this longer holiday season.

Day after Christmas

Many people have a big letdown on the day after Christmas—holiday expectations not met, memories of better times haunted by the changes today, etc. You fill in the blank with whatever weighs on you today.

Games - Day after Christmas

This year, on this day after Christmas, try something different. Call someone who may need cheering up, family or friend. Ask a family member about what Christmas was like when they were children, listen and ask questions to draw out more specifics. Dust off your stack of games and have a marathon game day. Tonight, make up some hot chocolate, grab your coat and hat to look at Christmas decorations in your area.

Finally,

The day after Christmas has arrived—enjoy it!

What are you doing today? Do you do anything traditional? If so, what?

Here’s Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When Its Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? Christmas meme

Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com

EXCITING NEWS HERE!

Press Release - #1 in multi-genres
Try Gratitude—I Challenge You!
family · God · Gratitude · My Thoughts · Recovery · Thanksgiving

Try Gratitude—I Challenge You!

Larada Horner-Miller8 Comments
Gratitude tuns what we have into enough

Try gratitude! My challenge to you is to be grateful this week—about all the blessings of your life. Thanksgiving always makes me think of gratitude. But do you really know what gratitude is? Have we heard it connected to Thanksgiving so often, it’s lost its meaning?

Positive psychology defines gratitude in a way where scientists can measure its effects, and thus argue that gratitude is more than feeling thankful: it is a deeper appreciation for someone (or something) that produces longer lasting positivity.


https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-appreciation/

Gratitude changes people, attitudes and just about everything it comes into contact with! In recovery, I learned the power of gratitude. I often hear people comment about making a gratitude list. We have a phrase, an Attitude of Gratitude, I’ve heard often. For many, negativity supersedes positivity or gratitude habitually, so the habit has to be changed. And how to do you do that? Practice, practice, practice!

Gratitude Log

So, I created a Gratitude log to chart three things to be grateful for each day this week. Click here to download my Gratitude Log, and start today. It is a Word document, so you can record your list on your computer or tablet. Decide whether to do it in the morning or evening, then commit yourself to that time each day. Maybe put a reminder on your calendar on your phone or tablet.

Email Family Members and/or Friends

To go along with this log, if you are listing people, shoot them off an email. I provide a sample below. If that person doesn’t do email, drop a card in the mail. That would be a shock! Just imagine the double blessing it would be—to get mail from someone other than the ridiculous junk mail vendors and then to open it to a beautiful note about your thankfulness about him/her.

To make it easy for you this week, I know you’re busy, busy—copy this email and send it to people to brighten their holidays.

My Email Example

Dear (Name),

I have deemed this week to be Gratitude Week, and I wanted you to know you are on my list. As I focus on all the good things in my life, I think of you and here’s why:

  • Add one thing reason you are grateful for this person
  • Add one thing reason you are grateful for this person
  • Add one thing reason you are grateful for this person

Just know I love you dearly and felt like I needed to let you know. (Pass this email on to anyone and bless their day!)

My Gratitude for My Recovery & My God

Gratitude is the best attitude!

So, each day this week for the Ultimate Blog Challenge, I’m going to identify people, places and things I’ve grateful for.

My recovery, which led me back to my God, tops my gratitude list. After many years, I have been given, because of recovery, a life I could never had dreamed of. Because of recovery, I came back to a God of my understanding who blesses every day. I had turned my back on the God of my childhood and young adulthood for many years, but because recovery offered me a God I could work with, it all changed.

Finally,

I often need to add something to a holiday to ground me amid the insanity of our world. Being grateful always centers me once more as I head towards Thanksgiving and then Christmas.

So, can you join me in this challenge and be grateful this week? Email or write someone a note to let them know why you are grateful for them? Try it again next week and the week afterwards? What do you think? Let me know below.

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? meme

Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com

Check out Cyber Week Specials at my Etsy Shop, Larada’s Reading Loft, on select books!

A Vampiress & an Alien Go into a Bar—Happy Halloween!
Holidays · My Thoughts · Writing

A Vampiress & an Alien Go into a Bar—Happy Halloween!

Larada Horner-Miller1 Comment
Happy Halloween - vampiress

Not really! A vampiress and an alien became the subject of two writing practices in my writing practice group a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Halloween. I had so much fun with the topics (everyone in the group wrote wildly humorous pieces); I decided to share them with you. To enliven them a bit, I’ve doctored them up just a little!

Enjoy!

Vampiress under a full moon
Vampiress

A Vampiress: First Halloween Writing Practice Prompt

For my first ten-minute writing practice, our leader assigned me the following three items: a bakery, banana bread and a vampiress.

Halloween finally arrived! My lips crave your gorgeous neck, but I have to control myself. I move around behind the display case at our family bakery, Delicacies from Transylvania. We specialize in all kinds of exotic breads and pastries, but what’s surprising today is this handsome man-creature wants plain ole banana bread.

Vampiress' Bakery
Delicacies from Transylvania

I catch my reflection in the window and gasp at my pale coloring. Forgetting my bloodless appearance, I forgot to put on enough rouge to rosy up my cheeks. I have to stop licking my lips, too—it causes my fangs to grow!

As our eyes meet over the bread display, I’m having trouble controlling my cravings. We exchange casual words, but I feel a mutual attraction. We continue our nonsensical back and forth. I see him scan my left hand and ring finger. In its absence, he asks me, “How about dinner tonight?”

My heart jumps in my chest—I can almost feel my fangs growing, so I cover my mouth with a pasty hand and fake a cough. I nod my head yes. After settling down some, I turn back to face him and say quietly, “I have to work until 11:00 PM here because I’m one of the bakers. Can we meet then?”

He chuckles and replies, “A late night get-together—how romantic! Yes, I’ll come by and get you.”

“That works because I live downstairs.”

Banana Bread
Banana Bread

As he walked out with the banana bread in hand, he looked back over his shoulder with a knowing glance, like he was as excited as I was with our late-night rendezvous.

The rest of the long day went by uneventfully. I baked until 10:00 PM, then raced downstairs to shower. After a speedy spitz, I put on my best red, shiny, sexy gown, red lipstick and black eyeliner. I survey myself in the mirror, more than satisfied with my appealing results.

At 11:00 PM, the door to the bakery opened, and he walked in with white roses—how did he know those are my favorite!

He took my hand in his and reached over for a kiss. Before I knew it, my fangs came out, and his neck became my destination, and I savored his delicious blood! What a start to the night for this precocious vampiress! Now pizza!

Vampiress drinking blood
Vampiress
An Alien
An Alien

An Alien: Second Halloween Writing Practice Prompt

For my second ten-minute writing practice, our leader assigned me the following three items: a beach, poppy seed muffin, and an alien.

Beach scene

I’ve never seen a beach before, but those earthlings seem enthralled with it. That wet stuff moving along the edge of the gritty stuff called “sand” is “water,” or they call it, “Ocean.” How crazy is that! On my planet, “ocean” is a dirty word. My pals back home would be howling.

In our world, our law enforcers have outlawed water because wet stuff deteriorates everything it comes into contact with. In fact, I saw a friend of mine dissolve right before my eyes when he accidentally spilled some on his appendage.

Even though I’m still fascinated. That big orange thing hanging over the edge of the water we see often at home, but when we see it, it’s cold, not warm like it is here on Earth. What a difference our two planets have. In my earthly travels, I’ve learned some words, and it seems they call it the sun, but at home we call it “boomerang.”

I’ve disguised my skinny body today to look like an earthling beach bum with a wide-brim floppy hat and dark sunglasses, so I could walk along the beach with these earth people. So many shapes and sizes amaze me. Some of them don two pieces of clothing but very skimpy to cover their bodies. Those have two bumps on the top they try to cover, but it’s questionable, and the bottom barely covers anything. The others wear only one piece to cover their lower part, and they have hair growing where the others have those two bumps that vary in size. Strange attributes for each.

I see a group sitting down near the water but not in it. My curiosity gets the best of me, so I sit on the edge of the group, making sure I’m not near the water.

Poppy seed muffin
Poppy Seed Muffin

They’re putting a round piece of something crumbly into the hole in the top part of their bodies, right under a part that sticks out some. They’re making cheerful sounds and saying, “Delicious poppy seed muffins.”

As I watch, the part they put in disappears, and they then take more and put that into that hole. Its holding capacity seems bottomless because they keep adding more.

One of them realized I was watching and asked me something—I’m not fluent in earthling language yet, so I shook my head up and down which on our planet means “No.”

The person jumped up and gave me one of the “poppy seed muffins.” I followed their lead and put it in the hole under the sticky-out part. Suddenly, the flavor exploded in my mouth! How delicious! But back home, this would be sinful—that much pleasure! What was I to do?

I sat, mouth full of the piece—I did not know what to do. I watched more closely and saw them swallow, so I tried it and almost gagged! Aliens can’t eat food from this planet. What to do now?

I zapped myself over to New York City to avoid swallowing that gooey stuff and embarrassing myself. Let’s see what’s going on here!

A vampiress and an alien—two Halloween characters to enliven your day! I hope you enjoyed my playfulness with a couple of Halloween prompts. What do you think? Do you like to tell Halloween stories? (Scroll down below to make a ghoulish comment!)

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