spread your arms wide

 Today is "Let's Hug Day" which sounds like a great day to me.  My west coast brother who sent me this information is a very good hugger himself, and so is everyone in his family, which makes visiting them quite wonderful.  I am a person who loves to be hugged.  Happily I come from a very huggable and hugging family.  My mother was a wonderful hugger, which came in very handy when I went through the inevitable breakups that come with high school romances.  My father would give my brothers and me one-arm hugs when we kissed him goodnight.  No lip kisses in our immediate family just foreheads or cheeks.  I used to laugh when my father would look up at me from his chair when I kissed his forehead, causing it to wrinkle in deep horizontal grooves that tickled my lips.  Interestingly, those deep wrinkles aren't nearly so funny when I see them in the mirror now.  But back to hugs.  Some people are just natural huggers (my wonder spouse is one) and you know that it's ok to hug them just about any time.  Some, not so much.  My first husband, who was an only child, was a fine hugger to me but I never saw him hug his mother.  They would shake hands if they hadn't seen each other for a while but never hug.  Happily, by the time my first husband and I had been married for several years, my mother-in-law would hug me, and she quickly learned to hug her grandchildren.  Going through life never hugging anyone would be very sad I think.  Lucky for me, I live where hugs abound.  

Don't cut yourself.

 Today is Safety Razor Day according to my west coast brother, and he does seem to know about these things. Do you remember the Christmas movie about the boy who wants a Red Rider bb gun, and his parents refuse, because, as they told him repeatedly, "You'll shoot your eye out."? Well, I had a similar experience in my youth except it involved a safety razor.  I was a freshman in high-school and desperately wanted to shave my legs like the cool girls did.  However, my mother was convinced that if I used a safety razor I would cut my leg off, or, at least slice an artery.  Now I grant you that I was not particularly coordinated in those days. I was a five foot, ten inch bean pole, with flailing arms and two left feet, so my mother had some cause to be concerned.  She was a kindhearted person though. For Christmas that year I received a lovely little red Lady Shick electric razor.  I used that for my legs for some time, finally switching to a safety razor in college, with an occasional  nick but no serious blood loss.

Lights on!!

 According to my west coast brother, today is "National Pie Day" and "National Christmas Lights Day."  Since I have vowed to myself that I will post no more blogs about food, at least for 24 days, I will skip any pie talk and go straight to Christmas lights.  With my wonder spouse's help (after I managed to get one super long string of lights hopelessly tangled on and off the tree) we did manage to get all of the lights on the tree.  We were just in time to celebrate National Christmas Lights Day.  Tomorrow we will start adding the ornaments.  I wonder if tomorrow is "National Ornament Hanging Day?"  I think it should be. 

Here is the result. We're making progress.