Herewearethefirstpaperof2024.Thisis24yearsafterY2K, andtheworldwassupposedtoturnbacktothedarkages.For those of you who don’t remember, there was a large group of people who believed all the computers were onlyprogrammeduntilmidnightonDec.31, 1999. Anything with a computer program would stop working. This would include electricity and heating. Without these two important parts of our lives, we would be back in the 1800s. We would cook on wood stoves and heat with wood (or in our part of the country, cow patties). People bought generators powered with gasoline to keep their home refrigerators running and cooking equipment working, pluslightsinourhouses.Withoutelectricity, there would be no television. There were not manycellphonesatthattimesosocialmedia was also not around yet.

Can you believe it’s Christmas and only a few days until 2024? I feel sure several readers are wondering where the time went. Of course, if you are seven years old and waiting for Santa, the time can’t pass fast enough.

By the time you read this, the publisher and editor of these newspapers will be bound for the East Coast to spend the holidays with family and friends. This year we are taking a week’s vacation between Christmas and New Year’s and not publishing a 52nd edition of our newspapers—a break for advertisers’ budgets, as well as for support staff who would have to gather news and lay out pages on Christmas Day.

Most of you have your Christmas tree and the rest of your house decorated. When did you start decorating? When I was a kid at my parent’s home, we put our real Christmas tree up about a week to ten days before Christmas.

HANABA MUNN WELCH 2023 drones Word association test: Drone. Did you think of a honeybee, specifically one of those lazy bees with nothing to do but hang out with the queen bee? Probably not.

Ihavenevergonehungry. Ihavenevergonewithout water, either for consumption or cleaning or cooking.

All we have heard this year is how much everythingcostscomparedtoafewyearsago. This is Thanksgiving week, and time to cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Let’s look back through the years to compare the cost of some of the groceries we have bought at the store for our Thanksgiving meal. The traditional meat is turkey and/or ham with dressing. I have to have cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, green beans or the infamous green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, deviledeggs,andsometypeofsalad.Itmight be tossed vegetable salad, fruit salad, or congealedsalad.Wecan’tforgetthepumpkin and pecan pies.

COMMENTARY HANABA MUNN WELCH Raise your hand if you think you might be neurotic. Raise your other hand if you don’t know what it means.

Thanksgiving is the greatest ofallthefood-centeredholidays. July Fourth is hot dogs and beer. Christmas is sugar highs and multitudinous distractions. New Years is about regrets in the cold, harsh light of the next morning.

Most of us want to uphold our family traditions, serving a similar Thanksgiving menu, year after year. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy adding something a little different to the table, occasionally.