Christmas Tradition

by Jimmy Johnson

December 5, 2005


I’ve been away awhile, and it’s good to be back. However, I hope you’ll bear with me as I warm up. I wouldn’t want to sprain anything, so, I’ll talk about the weather. It’s shaping up to be a real crappy winter if the late fall weather pattern holds. Guess I wouldn’t make much of a weatherman.


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32 responses to “Christmas Tradition”

  1. Jackie Avatar
    Jackie

    I live with a weatherman, trained by USAF, he looks out the window and on radar. Right now I have beautiful snow drifts outside my hospital window. At home 90 miles away he says sludgy mud and ice?

    1.  Avatar
      Anonymous

      Thanks for sharing your upbeat view!

  2. David in Granbury Avatar
    David in Granbury

    The La Nina temperature anomoly is holding in the Pacific, with the general impact of moving the jetstream north. The southern US will see warmer and drier winter conditions, while the northern tier will see colder and wetter conditions. Here’s a map:

    https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/LaNina_winter_flat_updated_large_0.png

    1. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
      curmudgeonly ex-professor

      So far, the prognosticators have been predicting a warmer-than-usual winter for N Illinois, and that’s great by me. I hope my source is more reliable than your source!

    2. Adrian Gilstrap Avatar
      Adrian Gilstrap

      That’s a great map. How does one navigate to it from the home page of climate.gov?

      1. David in Granbury Avatar
        David in Granbury

        Oops! The Blog has been updated since the link I saved earlier…here’s the December version.
        .
        https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/december-2020-la-ni%C3%B1a-update-walking-la-ni%C3%B1a-winter-wonderland

  3. Steve From Royal Oak, MI Avatar

    Spitting snow here in Michigan. 28°-32° but with the wind it feels like 19°. So I am wearing a winter coast with pants, rather than my running tights. I might wear both. I am seriously thinking of walking with a mask as the mask keeps my face warm.

    Just put my Christmas cards into the mail. Most of them are just a card as family is following me on Social Media and know what is going on. However my letter went something like this:

    Well another year has gone by and not much has happened…..NOT.

    But then as I tried to figure out what I actually did, it got really hard…. The letter was MUCH shorter this year!

    1. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
      curmudgeonly ex-professor

      I managed to write almost two pages of not-entirely-fascinating stuff for my Christmas card recipients, but I had thoughts of starting with a large paragraph on what we did NOT get to do this year instead of the usual what we did!! Probably others have had similar thoughts.

      We still have not had any official snow worthy of even passing mention – that’d be an inch or more – which is fine with me. On the other hand, I have a sibling in east central PA who is currently getting, likely, 20 or 25 inches! That same storm will do similar stuff for a bunch of childhood friends in NYCity and surrounds from NJ to as far as RI.

      1. Sideburns Avatar

        Over the weekend we had about three, maybe four inches of snow, and it’s almost all still on the ground because we’ve been having highs in the mid-twenties. Today and tomorrow, it will get into the forties, but Friday there’s a good chance of more in the daytime. This may not seem like much, but I grew up in Southern California and snow is still a bit of a novelty.

  4. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Just learned that a box was delivered to a giftee near Columbus, OH, today. From N. Illinois to Columbus, as a sober crow might fly, is less than 400 miles (even so by road). It took more than three weeks to get to Columbus and two more days to its destination. Somewhere in the $13.10 postage must have been a storage fee, eh?

    1. Mark in TTown Avatar
      Mark in TTown

      I ordered some coffee from an outfit in Massachusetts which has had good turnaround times on the previous orders. This time it took the post office 5 days just to get it out of Massachusetts. Tracking shows they sent it to CT and back, then let it sit in another MA post office a couple of days and finally got it on its way. No estimated arrival time, and this outfit sends their shipments as Priority Mail so I know someone at the USPS is having a hard time.

      1. Ghost Avatar
        Ghost

        My super-deal smartphone case I ordered shows as leaving Kenosha WI at 9:18 AM yesterday; arriving in Oklahoma City at 9:30 AM today; and with scheduled delivery to the house some time tomorrow. (Which usually means mid-afternoon in Eufaula.) By my lights, not too shabby service by the ol’ USPS, especially in the midst of the holiday shipping season.
        Of course, as in so many things these days, you pays your money and you takes your chances. (As they used to say before there was “YMMV”.)

    2. Steve From Royal Oak, MI Avatar

      Well they had to stop and feed the pony…Feed is not cheap!

  5. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    This USAF-trained weatherman normally makes his own (somewhat short-range) forecasts from radar data and synoptic weather maps. (I used to have to plot those darn thing from teletype-reported surface weather observations. Yet another way in which I’ve been replaced by a computer, I’m sure.) Recently, I’ve been rather pressed for time, so I’ve just been checking the “Dark Sky” app on my smartphone.
    Oh, and the “Thanksgiving Dinner Menu” posted on the refrigerator door I revised to read “Christmas Dinner Menu”? I fixed it again, this time editing it to read “New Year’s Dinner Menu”.

    1. Ghost Avatar
      Ghost

      Re the 12-9-05 cartoon (part of the retro series above): Thanks a lot, Jimmy. Santa in a black Speedo is one of those thing you just can’t un-see.

  6. Oldbear Avatar
    Oldbear

    Sure saved paper on our yearly letter. Three notes (16pt type) on a sheet.
    What can you say about hibernation?

  7. Jackie Avatar
    Jackie

    Awake and enjoying the posts. We got my discharge date December 28. I am so looking forward to New Years dinner with Ghost and the beginning of 2021

    A New Year.

    Crazy as it sounds my time in rehabilitation has been enjoyable. the food is delicious and healthy, the room is quiet and atmosphere pleasant, staff conscientious and positive .

    Great Christmas gift, to learn hiw to live correctly and manage your health properly, to go on living!

    1. Dawn Avatar
      Dawn

      Beautiful words and thoughts, Jackie! Because of the onset of a fairly serious chronic health problem that isn’t going to just go away but cn be managed if I pay attention to it, I’ve been learning how to scale back on pretty much everything the last few years. (I tell my sister I was practicing for the pandemic. 🙂 At first it felt constraining and frustrating to have to do this. But slowly I’ve been learning to relax into a slower pace, one in which I pay much more attention to the moment since that’s the only viable option. And to my surprise, a simple but profound beauty has blossomed around me. It was always there, but I was too busy to see it. So I’ve felt just exactly like what you say, that I am finally learning how to live correctly. And yes, it does feel like a gift. Merry Christmas to you and Ghost and Dickens.

  8. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    Sideburns, good to hear from you. I was afraid that you may have been burned out. Your house, not you. Jackie , I know there must be days when you don’t feel very lucky. All that I can say is that you definitely are. JJ hasn’t been peeking in our windows for a very long time. It looks like I’ll spend Christmas day with the kitties. That’s ok. I’ve done worse.

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