Happy Thanksgiving

When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was a big holiday. Even though our family of four was small, the table was set for grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends. The days before Thanksgiving were a mad rush of preparation. There was cleaning and polishing and scrubbing. My sister and I were the dusters, silver polishers and vacuum team. The day before Thanksgiving we were the vegetable peelers and choppers.

The table was prepared with the good china. It was the set my mother brought back from Japan after the war. It was white with a silver rim and a bamboo leaf pattern. She also brought out the good silver. That silver was polished (by us) and ready to go. The silver box was scratched mahogany. Inside was a lining of purple velvet and the cutlery was stacked in neat columns. The backing on the front lid was peeling away from the wood and every year I thought that someone should glue it back and every year no one did. My grandmother’s crystal was also on the table; it held olives and celery even though no one liked that combination.

Thanksgiving morning started at dawn. My dad went into the kitchen where he washed the bird in the kitchen sink. Why we never got sick from that I’ll never know. He stuffed it with an old family recipe and started it cooking. We woke up to the wonderful scent of roasting turkey.

When my sister and I were small we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and then the Natalie Wood movie, Miracle on 34^th Street. As we got older we went to our high school rivalry Thanksgiving Day football game; always against Red Bank High School. In our 20’s a family of friends started a tradition of rolls and coffee at their house and then a trek to the football game. That tradition lasted for many years.

We were always back home by around 2:00 pm. The house was warm, many times a fire was going in the fireplace and the place smelled delicious. The family and friends, if not already there, started arriving and cocktails and snacks were passed around. There was a lot of smiling and laughing and kissing. No matter what age we were, it was warm and happy and secure.

Fast forward. Life changes, family and friends have moved away or passed on. While those moments can never return, the Thanksgiving traditions flow through my blood. Tonight I polished a silver tray that I’ll never use. Habit I guess. I also set the table for our small family with the good stuff; my mother’s china and grandmother’s crystal celery dish. 

On Thursday when I’ll bow my head and thank God for the family and friends in our lives today, I will also remember the Thanksgivings of long ago. I truly miss those people and traditions. I hope that wherever they are, they will feel my prayer and my toast to their memory. I also hope that my children will have memories of happy Thanksgivings from their own childhoods and that they too can create traditions that can be passed down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Resume Cheat Sheets

When you attend any of my job search classes you leave with an armful of worksheets designed to help you write your resume, interview or network. You’ll get as many free samples and tools that you’re comfortable using. Two of these tools are designed for resume writing; specifically for writing your accomplishments. Writing  your accomplishments is one of the hardest parts of resume design.  Most people don’t think of about the impact of their actions and instead, use their resumes as a listing of job activities. This is the worst thing you can do with your resume and is a good guarantee that it will end up in the trash. Resumes must be tailored to each position and need specific, measurable examples of your accomplishments. After all, an interviewer or resume reviewer wants to know, “What’s in it for us?”

The first worksheet, Measurable Accomplishments looks like this:

What did you do?	Who was Involved?	Why did you do it?	How did you do it?	What was the result?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The purpose of this form is to review you job responsibilities and as you are doing so, jot down the answers to these questions.  Your honest evaluation should help you uncover the measurable results of your actions. 

The second worksheet is a simple two-column chart.  On the left you will list the responsibilities of the open position and on the right, you would add examples of your experience that match with or align with those responsibilities.

New Position Responsibilities	Examples of Your Accomplishments That Support These

Both of these worksheets should help your identify your accomplishments and allow you to build a specific, tailored resume.  They will also help you with the interview, especially with any behavioral questions.

Why the Uproar Over Christmas?

 

This morning a local television station reported that several malls were considering changing their Santa holiday displays by removing the Christmas trees and going for a more Winter Solstice look. The local consumers loudly complained and the malls are now scrambling to go back to the familiar North Pole with a Christmas tree landscape. Next, on the business channel, Bill Nye took to the news to discuss the numbers and science behind climate change. These two examples along with the red Starbucks cup debacle had me consider the number of Christians who are being pushed out of their Christian celebration of Christmas. Like Bill Nye, I looked at the numbers.

According to the results of a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center called America’s Changing Religious Landscape, and reported in May, 2015 the number of people claiming affiliation with Christianity in the United States has declined by approximately 7% to 70.6% (from a similar poll done in 2007). This drop is mostly seen in the Catholic and Protestant religions.The report shares much more data concerning diversity, ethnicity, interracial marriage, Millennial’s and the aging population however the report confirms that the United State continues to be home to more Christians than any other country in the world. 

The Pew Report details most all religions and lack of organized faith. Some of the poll numbers show that in 2014 the religious make up for non-Christian religions (Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other world religions) was 5.9% and for those unaffiliated with any organized religion (atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular) the number was 22.8%.
 
Keeping these number in mind, again, Christians at 70.6%, and by combining non-Christians and unaffiliated at 28.7%, why is there an annual uproar over the display of Christmas celebrations? Why, if the majority of our country’s population is Christian, must the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ’s birth be silenced? One would think that for this holiday, the majority rule at 70.6%. Maybe I am just focusing on numbers but they tell a story that in this instance outweighs being politically correct. What do you think?