This and That: A Blog

  Skywatch Friday   The sky was striped a bit before sunrise the other morning. Have a nice weekend.  It's supposed to rain here... again.  It's been raining a lot.  

🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🎄 Fittingly, the theme for this week's Thursday Postcard Hunt is Christmas!   1911 c.1930s - 1940s when bright colors, " Golly, " and humorous winks at " curses " would have been popular.  c.1905 c.1910 - 1915 1911 This one is interesting due to its cancellation advertising the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. One of my favorite postcards of all of my postcards!   c.1908 - 1910 printed in Germany A traditional nativty combined with figures from European folk customs. There's a hunter in his traditional dress with his German dachshund and several dead animals. A boy has brought a live animal of some sort in a cage.  Then, a mother with three children are wearing 1880s - early 1900s clothing, and have brought a tree for Jesus' first Christmas.   It may be Joseph hiding in the shadows, or a shepherd.   It just all makes such a strange nativity!   Hope you have a very Merry ...

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge It's the festive time of year!  Happy Christmas Eve!

Two things I noticed about my thrifted antique postcards.  Maybe you noticed too and wondered the same things I did. First, a controversial word.  Xmas 1910 from Great Britian Yes, Xmas.  Some claim using it instead of the full Christ in Christmas is " taking the Christ out of Christmas, " even finding it offensive.  They see it as the big part of the " War on Christmas " that has been taking place for the past few years (decades?), or so they believe.  In fact, the St. Vincent de Paul volunteer who was with me when I went through the many cards for sale questioned the use, and seemed surprised the antique cards used the shortened word.  (Which goes to show, we may have grown up in the same town and attended the same high school just a few years apart, but somewhere along the line our similar backgrounds diverged.) 1912 So, what's the truth?  What is the history of Xmas, and was is used to remove Christ from the word Christmas?   The short an...

❄  Winter has arrived! ❄ I don't get "real" winter like so many of you do, so for me it just means making a new folder named "winter" for photos taken starting today! If we do get snow it's only for a day or so, and not much.  Not like this January in 2017.    There isn't any snow on Mount Ashland (in the Siskiyou Mountains), so the ski area hasn't opened yet.  They need at least 2.5' of snow and a few days prep to open. They encourage skiers to perform "... snow dances, pray to Ullr.. ."  Ullr is the Norse god associated with skiers.  I am not a skier.  I tried a few times as a teen.  Nope.  Not something I seem to be able to do!  There's Mount Ashland in the distance, seen from my backyard yesterday. Here the Winter Solstice is very rainy.  

The  Sunday Stamps theme this week is the letter U . U niversal Postal Union 100th Anniversary  Belgium 1974 U nited Nations 1951 U niform  Stamp commemorates the 15th anniversary of the Polish Red Cross. Poland 1959 U niform King Michael in military u niform.  King Michael was the last king, reigning from 1927 to 1930, and then again from 1940 until his abdication in 1947. Romania 1934 V stamps are next week.