A big TY to This Box Rocks for the review!
Today is your day. It’s a day to do what you want, when you want to do it and with whomever you want to do it with, It’s STAY HOME BECAUSE YOU’RE WELL DAY. I mean, we stay home because we are sick. We aren’t productive when we are sick and there is the chance of passing on whatever you have to someone else at work. But what fun is that! Why not stay home and enjoy yourself for a change! Maybe read a book or better yet, start writing one!
Or maybe you can catch up on a little sleep! We never get enough sleep. Even when we plan to go to bed early something always comes up to prevent us getting there so why not spend the day sleeping away the hours. It’s better than sleeping at your desk or a lot better if you happen to be a pilot and trying to catch up on your sleep while at work.
You could go for a walk, take your children with you. It’s great to spend time with the family out in nature. When your weekend comes up, even if it’s not really the weekend, you have so much to get caught up on… grocery shopping, dry cleaning, getting the car worked on, etc. When you take off a perfectly good work day you can actually waste it on yourself!
Listen to a little music! Maybe there is new band since the Rolling Stones! Maybe Lawrence Welk is still performing! Who knows!?! It’s been so long since you could actually sit down and analyze a song. Maybe there is some new lesson to be learned from some one so much younger than you that things everything in the world is just fine… or even worse, not fine!
Or finally maybe just take a long relaxing bath. You know, I never really understood the point of taking a bath. You are dirty so you want to get clean, so you sit in a tub of hot water and bath.. in all that dirt that has no place to escape. So maybe take a shower first before getting into the bath!
Anyway, whatever you want to do is okay with Thomas and Ruth Roy who created Stay Home Because You’re Well Day. They are involved with “Wellcat Holidays”.
How to celebrate – Take a day off from everything and just celebrate yourself! Find a way to put all the worries and possibilities out of your head. Become one with the universe.
Now in it’s 9th year, this is a tremendous way to get people interested in their local Libraries. Libraries all across the world host a variety of games under their roofs to prove they are not just all about education.
Games such as chess, checkers, board games, role-playing games, video games, card games, trivia games, and even tournaments are run inside libraries.
It is a safe environment where any question you have about rules can easily be looked up. It can be a fun day and a great way to make new friends.
How to celebrate – Go to your local Library on November 29 and see what’s going on! If nothing is happening, offer to host an International Games Day for the Library. Try to make up a new board game.
Everyone knows this is Cyber Monday so I am choosing another subject, French Bread Day. Is it a breakfast food? A dessert? A snack? The answer to those perplexing questions is, yes. Though it is called French Toast the French had little to do with it and no one seems to know why the French get the credit. Sure, it seems like something the French would create but the fact is, it was created long before there was even a France.
Over the years if has been called Egg Bread, German Toast, Poor Knight’s Pudding, Bombay Toast, and who knows what else. It first appeared as a recipe back in the 4th century written in Latin. It appeared again in 14th century Germany as Poor Knight’s Pudding because it could be made cheaply. Most versions are simply made from bread, dunked in eggs and milk, and fried. Here’s a recipe if you actually need one!
The English came up with a version adding Nutella to the mix for additional flavor. The Italians add cheese in the middle of their bread – calling it, “Mozzarella En Carrozza”. Of course fruit goes well with the toast, as does practically any kind of nut, and maple syrup is a natural sweetner. Add a little whipped cream, and you’ve got nearly every food group added to one dish.
Where the French did actually become involved was when they used stale or old bread to make their version of French Bread calling it ‘Pain Perdu’ or “Lost Bread”. The bread may have even had a little mold mixed in just for flavor.
How to celebrate – Start your day out with some French Toast, or have it for lunch, or supper. It goes great any time you choose to eat it. Create your own new French Toast dish. Add a little meat and you wind up with a McGriddle! Or try the newest version…
When it comes time for dessert, I don’t know hardly anyone who turns down a slice of Bavarian Cream Pie. Chocolate, in most cases, whipped cream, Bavarian cream (creme) and a cake like substance so that it’s almost like having a piece of pie and a piece of cake at the same time. It’s rarely heavy, always moist and delicious.
It goes with nearly any holiday and can be made to include fruit either on top of the pie, or inside the cream filling. Since I like nearly anything with raspberry in it, here’s a recipe for a raspberry Bavarian cream pie. But you can use strawberries, blue berries, or any fruit you like. Oh, and the whipped cream is optional but I would add it, what doesn’t taste better with whipped cream on it!?!
Or you can get fancy with shaved chocolate, that’s probably the way the French would serve it. But isn’t Bavaria in Germany? Oh well, guess it doesn’t really matter, the French always seem to make everything better. In fact it was a French chef, Marie Antione, who is credited with first coming up with Bavarian Cream Pie in the early 19th century. It’s called Creme Bavaroise in France.
How to celebrate – Well, naturally, have a piece of Bavarian Cream Pie in whatever fashion you choose. Try adding something to your recipe and come up with something different of your own! Travel to Bavaria, but stop in France on the way so you can get some Bavarian Cream Pie!
Today is “Go For A Ride Day”, a day to sit back and enjoy just going nowhere. As a parent most of us have taken our young children for a ride to get them to calm down and hopefully go to sleep. Well, if it works for babies, why not adults.
Why not enjoy just driving up and down the streets in a car they might have driven in the 1930’s. Back before there were highways and freeways where the only point is going as fast as you can to get where you are going. It use to be that we traveled down country lanes watching the leaves turn colors and enjoying the crops growing on the side of the road. Now the only crops growing along most roads are illegal in most states except Colorado.
Or if you are a little more daring how about a ride in an old biplane. Looking down at earth while sailing among the clouds. The open air cockpit letting the breeze blow on your face, along with the old and fumes from the engine. But still, it’s your chance to soar like an eagle unless you are in Colorado and stopping along the highway and cultivating the crops growing there.
Or maybe you feel like being a King or Queen for the day and riding in a carriage! I find it very relaxing to ride in a carriage, at night, in one of the old southern towns. (The northern towns are probably pretty calming too though I have never ridden in a carriage in the north.) It is relaxing though just hearing the horse’s hooves clap on the road way… and the horns of the cars behind you that are mad because they can’t get around you.
And this time of year there really is nothing like going on a snow sleigh ride. Just don’t go in your bathing suit.
Seriously though, going for a ride with no place in particular to go is relaxing. You get a chance to think about things you haven’t thought about in years, enjoy someone’s company (Someone who has hopefully gone along with you on the ride) and see things you normally miss when you are in a hurry to get somewhere.
How to celebrate – Figure out your favorite mode of transportation and go for a ride. It may be a plane, a train or an automobile. Close you eyes and remember a trip you made in the past when you enjoyed going where you wanted to.Take your best friend on the ride with you, whether that’s a person, a dog or a memory.
It’s World Television Day! If you subscribed to our November Holiday Boxes, it’s time to pull out that Tin TV Lunchbox or Captain Kirk & Mr. Spock Salt & Pepper Shakers and celebrate with us!
Read on for more about the day…
The television has revolutionized the world and helped shape public opinion since the 1950’s. The first working television was developed by John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who finalized the work of many others trying to make television work in the 1920’s. After World War 2, when all sorts of luxuries began to come on the scene, Americans and Brits were the first to enjoy the new media outlet. It changed the face, literally, of politics and let people see who they were electing instead of just hearing their voice. By the 1960’s, television came in color and since then the improvements have come fast and furious. November 21st was chosen by the UN in 1996.
Suggested ways to celebrate: Watch your favorite television show. Investigate the latest improvements to television. Get your own local access tv show!
Today is National Stuffing Day. The day to decide whether you fix your stuffing inside the turkey or outside the turkey.
To make traditional stuffing or something out of a box.
Or follow some recipe that sounds good to you created by a famous chef. Now I understand this is the true meaning of stuffing day but I feel it should be – THREE STAGE STUFFING DAY – instead.
STAGE ONE
The first being the traditional fixing of the stuffing as first written down in a Roman cookbook, “De Re Coquinaria” in early Italy. But there are two other stuffings that should go along with “Stuffing Day”.
STAGE TWO
Stage two is stuffing yourself at the Thanksgiving Day table until you are nearly ready to explode. Even if you don’t eat the stuffing you’ll be stuffed, and isn’t that what Thanksgiving Day is all about?
STAGE THREE
Stage three is all about sitting in front of the television watching football, whether you like football or not, in your OVER-STUFFED chair. Of course, sleep is soon to follow whether the game is exciting or not!
So, I call for the THREE STAGE STUFFING DAY – Stuffing the turkey, stuffing yourself, and relaxing in your over-stuffed chair!
How to celebrate – Get stuffed in any of three ways you choose, or better yet… all three!
When you stop and think about all the things that surround us in life that are absolutely absurd it’s a wonder we are able to function at all. Of course, most of it is because of our own doing but that doesn’t make it any better. For example, we buy cars that can go 120 miles an hour. Not that we can drive them that fast anywhere but to some, it’s a really important reason for buying a car. Or, why do we need double stuff Oreo’s? Sure they taste good but do we really want to get fatter by eating twice the most fattening part?
And it was only a little over a hundred years ago that cocaine was thought to be a wonder drug. It was a pain killer, a hair grower, and great for children and adults alike. That was, of course, until we found out that it kills!
Oh, you can make up all sorts of stuff and maybe even make yourself believe it, but it’s still absurd. Sort of like riding a bike on water.
We justify all sorts of absurd things but today, it’s okay. Today you can enjoy Impressionistic Art, jokes you don’t understand, and escargot.
How to celebrate – Think up as many absurd things that go on around you daily and write them down. Try walking backwards all day, see if anybody notices. Sing everything you have to say instead of saying it.
Believe it or not, Parker Brothers had the general idea of the Monopoly game in 1883. They actually published the idea but did not develop the game until Elizabeth Magie came up with the final version in 1902. Since 1935, when the game actually hit the market place it is estimated that some 5 million people have played the game (I think that figure may be a little low).
We are talking about building a fortune here! Something everyone would like to do in real life but rarely can do (unless you are Donald Trump). But if you think about it, it makes sense since when the Brothers began developing the game the entire country was all about building. The strategy seems to be to own Park Place and Boardwalk and all the railroads… just like in real life (though the railroads don’t really apply anymore).
And apparently the idea has taken off to other countries as well. I think this board is Russian, who I believe have been trying to take over the world since time began! Though it might not be Russian but I find it interesting that while the title is another language the squares are all in English.
And since it is educational, (I say that with the wink of an eye), the Brothers have developed a child’s version. And why not, let’s teach children the idea of greed and ruling the world! But it does have some valuable lessons to learn. Waiting to make the right buys, trading, and spending wisely, and math.
And if ruling the country isn’t enough for you, you can try and win the Empire version! Or you can try to win with versions such as the Wizard of Oz, Steampunk Monopoly, or even, Communist Monopoly.
How to celebrate – Start a Monopoly game, it might not end for a week! Design your own special Monopoly game. Start building your own real monopoly, though the government will probably try to stop you at some point.
Unboxing the Bizarre™ 