Carnival of Family Life: Memorial Day Edition

Wel­come to the Memo­r­ial Day 2008 Edi­tion of the Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life.

Memo­r­ial Day is specif­i­cally reserved to honor those who have died in ser­vice to the United States. While the holiday’s ori­gins are unclear and sub­ject to debate, what is known is that it was orig­i­nally called “Dec­o­ra­tion Day” because it was a time when the graves of Civil War sol­diers were dec­o­rated. It began in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent towns, but in 1966 Lyn­don John­son declared Water­loo, New York the site of its gen­e­sis. Long before it became a national hol­i­day, Water­loo had treated it as such, clos­ing down its busi­nesses and hold­ing city-wide observances.

The first offi­cial com­mem­o­ra­tion, on May 30, 1868, was marked by the place­ment of flow­ers on the graves of Union and Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers at Arling­ton National Ceme­tery. Fol­low­ing World War I, obser­vances expanded to honor those who died in all Amer­i­can battles.

It was not until 1971 that Con­gress declared Memo­r­ial Day a fed­eral hol­i­day cel­e­brated annu­ally on the last Mon­day in May. In con­trast, Vet­er­ans Day, Novem­ber 11, is for the pur­pose of hon­or­ing vet­er­ans, liv­ing or dead.

One of the best ways to edu­cate chil­dren about the sac­ri­fice so many have made for their coun­try is to take them to Memo­r­ial Day com­mem­o­ra­tive cer­e­monies in your com­mu­nity. Encour­ag­ing them to help dec­o­rate the graves of fam­ily mem­bers who served in the Armed Forces is an excel­lent way to teach them to respect and honor all veterans.

Edu­ca­tion

racee Sioux presents Empow­er­ing Girls: I Would Pick You posted at So Sioux Me. She believes that “affirm­ing our kids is vital.”

Tammy presents When It’s Over… That’s the Time to Fall in Love, Again posted at The Life With­out School Blog.

Look­ing for a way to teach your chil­dren about char­i­ta­ble giv­ing? Why not help sup­port the estab­lish­ment or main­te­nance of a vet­er­ans’ memo­r­ial in your community?

Fam­ily Finance

nickel presents Our Allowance Sys­tem: New and Improved posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Alex presents Wed­ding Bud­get Plan­ner and Cal­cu­la­tor Spread Sheet posted at Home Life Weekly, a handy tool that will enable you to accu­rately mon­i­tor the true cost of a wedding.

Brice Hogan presents 6 Ways To Keep Your Food Bill Down posted at Financialzip.com.

Ray­mond presents Work From Home With Paid Online Sur­veys posted at Money Blue Book.

Matthew Paul­son presents Keep Your Pool from Drown­ing Your Bud­get posted at Amer­i­can Con­sumer News.

Debt Free­dom Fighter presents 5 Finan­cial Rules To Live By posted at Dis­cover Debt Free­dom!

Fam­ily Health and Wellness

BeThisWay presents The Sun­screen Con­tro­versy posted at Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest of The Time I Know You?.

Sha­heen Lakhan presents Adult Atten­tion Deficit Dis­or­der: A Real Con­cern posted at Brain Blog­ger.

Suzanne presents First Visit To Local Farm­ers Mar­ket posted at Mommyfootprint.com. She is “striv­ing to buy local food and, at the same time, teach impor­tant lessons to my kids about the impor­tance of reduc­ing our car­bon footprint.”

Batya presents “Healthy Treats?” posted at me-ander.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Brain Health Busi­ness Grows With Research and Demand posted at Sharp­Brains, “an in-depth look into the ‘brain train­ing’ field and its future direction.”

Fam­ily Humor

Forthekids presents Mr. Ftk doesn’t like the Troll on my side­bar posted at Rea­son­able Kansans.

mom & dad presents Things You Could Never Imag­ine Say­ing posted at raising4boys.com.

emily whitby presents Con­fes­sions of a Non-Soccer Mom posted at Crazy Mom: Ideas, Recipes, Thoughts, Humor & More!.

Riley presents Look at Them Pearly Whites posted at All Rileyed Up.

Brent Diggs presents Nightlife posted at The Omi­nous Comma.

Susan Lutz presents I’m grow­ing up right along side my kids posted at Moth­er­Jun­gle, echo­ing a com­mon sen­ti­ment: “My kids always seem to teach me a thing or two.”

Jed Doyle presents Zom­bies Scare Me: Sci­ence Geek Son posted at Zom­bies Scare Me.

Fam­ily Pets

Matt M presents Dog Eats Too Fast? Try Dog­Pause Bowl posted at The Pet Haven, a prod­uct review of a dog bowl that helps slow down your dog’s din­ing habits.

What­Works­ForUs presents Cat-n-tonic State posted at What Works For Us.

Fathersez presents Meet the newest mem­bers of the Fathersez fam­ily posted at Father Sez. They have never been “all that great with pets,” but are eager to set a new precedent.

Each Memo­r­ial Day, the Pres­i­dent vis­its Arling­ton National Ceme­tery, offers remarks about the con­tri­bu­tions of Amer­i­can ser­vice­men and women, and places a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Sol­dier, who was laid to rest there on Nov. 11, 1921. In 1932, the sim­ple white-marble tomb was erected and ded­i­cated. The inscrip­tion reads: “Here rests in hon­ored glory an Amer­i­can sol­dier known but to God.” In 1958, two more unknown sol­diers, one from World War II and one from the Korean War, were buried there and the name was changed to the Tomb of the Unknowns. On Memo­r­ial Day 1984, a sol­dier from the Viet­nam War was interred. How­ever, in 1998, when genetic tests iden­ti­fied the remains as those of Michael Blassie, an Air Force lieu­tenant who died in com­bat in 1972, his body was moved to Jef­fer­son Bar­racks National Ceme­tery in Missouri.

Fam­ily Relationships

Pat Rup­pel presents A Time to Remem­ber posted at Plain Talk and Ordi­nary Wis­dom.

Home­spun­heal­ers presents Set­ting Healthy Bound­aries With Fam­ily Mem­bers posted at Home­Spun­Heal­ers.

Sherry Love presents Should I con­tinue to see an old friend behind my husband’s back? posted at Sherry Love. net.

Met­al­iphe presents Divi­sion of Labor Issues posted at Chan­dra Unplugged — No non­sense, Straight-up blog­ging from a Life Coach. Do you have a rela­tion­ship to which each part­ner makes a unique, but equal, con­tri­bu­tion or do you strug­gle to achieve bal­ance? If its the lat­ter, this arti­cle might help.

Anna Farmery presents There is Hope in Grief posted at Wid­ows Quest.

Praveen presents Tao of Sim­plic­ity: Week­end After­noon With My Son posted at Tao of Sim­plic­ity.

Han­nah presents Going On: Love in a Time of Cri­sis posted at The Pur­loined Let­ter.

Michael Sny­der presents Rad­i­cal Depop­u­la­tion Of The Earth — The Solu­tion To Mankind’s Prob­lems? posted at Shat­tered Par­a­digm.

Woman Tri­bune presents The Ulti­mate Bed posted at Woman Tri­bune.

Car­rie Holub presents The Golden Age of Par­ent­ing posted at Moth­er­hood Bytes.

Love­lyn presents Home­made Ant Bait posted at The Art of Bal­anced Liv­ing.

Chief Fam­ily Offi­cer presents Legal Advice for Boomers: Tips for rais­ing grand­chil­dren posted at Chief Fam­ily Offi­cer.

Terri Mauro presents Judg­ing Dis­rup­tive Behav­ior in Church posted at About Par­ent­ing Spe­cial Needs.

Chris McGinn presents Make a mem­ory on Memo­r­ial Day posted at Hit­ting Home.

Why do the mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Legion sell red crepe paper pop­pies every Memo­r­ial Day? Moina Michael is cred­ited with begin­ning the tra­di­tion in 1915 after hear­ing the poem “In Flan­ders Fields” where 368 mem­bers of the armed forces who died in World War I (1914–1918) are buried. The poet, John McCrae, was a sur­geon with Canada ‘s First Brigade Artillery. The poem was drafted in response to his sor­row at see­ing the graves of those who died on Flan­ders’ bat­tle­fields, located in a region of west­ern Bel­gium and north­ern France.

The Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars (VFW) adopted the poppy as its offi­cial memo­r­ial flower in 1922. A short­age of pop­pies inspired the idea of enlist­ing unem­ployed and dis­abled vet­er­ans to pro­duce the arti­fi­cial ver­sion. Although a poppy fac­tory in Pitts­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia sup­plied the arti­fi­cial blooms for many years, today they are assem­bled at Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs med­ical facil­i­ties and vet­er­ans’ homes and dis­trib­uted by the Amer­i­can Legion and other vet­er­ans’ ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions. Dona­tions ben­e­fit vet­er­ans and their sur­vivors, as the poppy stands as “a per­pet­ual trib­ute to those who have given their lives for the nation’s freedom.”

In Flan­ders Fields

In Flan­ders fields the pop­pies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sun­set glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flan­ders fields.

Par­ent­ing Tips and Advice

Kevin Heath presents Tips For Help­ing Our Kids Grow Up Green posted at More4kids.

Anmol Mehta presents How to Raise Enlight­ened Chil­dren posted at Mas­tery of Med­i­ta­tion, Enlight­en­ment and Kun­dalini Yoga, a dis­cus­sion of a non-dual, spir­i­tual approach to rais­ing chil­dren who will achieve their high­est human potential.

Fiona Lohrenz presents End the whin­ing at day care posted at Child Care Only.

How­ToMe presents How to Put on a Princess/Royal Pic­nic Party posted at How­ToMe.

Fam­ily Activ­i­ties and Travel

Love­lyn presents Home­made Ant Bait posted at The Art of Bal­anced Liv­ing.

Next Mon­day, June 2, 2008, the Car­ni­val will be Live from Water­loo. Sub­mit your family-related posts not later than 7:00 p.m. (Pacific time) on Sat­ur­day, May 31, 2008.

If you would like to host a future edi­tion, please review the sched­ule here and drop a note using the con­tact form, let­ting me know which date works best for you! (The archive of past Edi­tions is located here.)

Tech­no­rati Tags: Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life, Memo­r­ial Day

On the Same Topic:

• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: The Merry Christ­mas 2009 — and Final — Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Thank­ful­ness Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Happy Hal­loween 2009 Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Sep­tem­ber 2009 “Fall Into Fall” Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: August 2009 Edition