Beach Holidays: Thanksgiving!

<<In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought it appropriate to pluck from the annals of my military spouse newsletters a column I’d written about the finer points of table etiquette. It just goes to prove that I learn something new every day!>>

“Passing Directions…

Which Are in No Way Connected to Driving a Motor Vehicle.”

'Tis the season…for holiday gatherings which involve too much food and not enough etiquette, much like the one I recently experienced during a large gathering of our navy family.  There were twenty people seated around one long table, which had been festooned with Lenox China, Waterford crystal and more forks, knives and spoons than I knew what to do with.  But despite the formal setting, there were no butlers dancing attendance, so the meal was served “Family Style.”  This requires the passing of the food around the table for each diner to pile mountains of gastronomic pleasures onto their own plate.

Beach Writers: November Starter Sentence

<<For those of you new to my blog, every month my Writer's Guild gives a starter sentence and off we go writing a very short story. The part that got us started is in bold italics...feel free to use it to jump start your muses this holiday season!>>

     The turkey was delicious, but something tasted funny about the gravy.  Then all of a sudden Aunt Mable clutched at her throat then fell face down in her mashed potatoes.  We all stopped eating and stared at the dear old woman, watching as golden gravy oozed through her blue-tint hair.   Nobody rushed to her rescue, nobody reached over to pick her head out of her plate, nobody called 9-1-1.  In fact, nobody seemed dismayed in the least at this turn of events, just waited quietly for something else to happen.

     This was my first holiday with the Callahan clan. Was it part of their Thanksgiving tradition to have someone take a nose-dive into the feast? I looked across the table at my fiancé Mark.  Our eyes met.  Did I detect a twinkle in those baby blues? With great exaggeration he mouthed, “Wait for it.” Thirty seconds later, Aunt Mable popped her head up and yelled “April Fools!”  Everyone laughed and clapped and agreed that it’s cute when a one-hundred-and-three year old woman confuses her holidays.

You can read other guild members' musings here:  http://eastbeachwritersguild.blogspot.com/p/starter-sentences.html

The December starter sentence is: "The tree we bought smelled great..." Go ahead and give it a try yourself!