If you haven’t learned by now, here in XWCL we like to get festive with decoration. We’ve posted our past Christmas decorations, but it doesn’t end there. We’ve also decorated for Thanksgiving, but it somehow never made it to the blog… until now.
Flashback to November 1st, 2017: Lauren and I decided that the office was in need of seasonal decor update. We put up a small Christmas tree and a door wreath. It was very lovely and festive. It didn’t last long, as we were immediately commanded to remedy the situation.
But, in this group, we do not easily give up. The next year, we came back with full Thanksgiving decor using contributions from members of XWCL and CAAO. I present to you, lovers of the blog, our beloved paper hand turkey decorations:
Paper hand turkeys are the epitome of Thanksgiving decor. For any person who attended elementary school in the United States, paper hand turkeys are the most probable fall craft on the agenda. In making our paper hand turkeys, we wanted to embody that same enjoyment from our childhood. I highly encouraged people to sign their name with their non-dominant hand and in crayon.
Unfortunately, we never had the opportunity to redo the paper hand turkey wall. In October 2019, Steward Observatory was undergoing its first renovation and relocated the entire 4th floor north side personnel to temporary office space on the 3rd floor. Additionally, the MagAO-X team was busy in Chile with their first light run. We didn’t get our offices back until December 2019. We had no paper hand turkey wall in 2020 due to the pandemic. In summer 2021, we experienced an office shuffle. We moved to the conference rooms and offices at the other side of the hallway, with no bulletin board easily accessible to post our creations up.
Despite these lost opportunities, the paper hand turkeys continue to live on. Jared likes to keep his paper hand turkey on the bulletin board inside his office, so he can look at it year round in the few moments he sits in there. We currently have a few old and new ones posted up in the XWCL graduate student office space:
Photo credit: Logan Pearce
Happy Thanksgiving, from XWCL. If there’s anything I’m thankful for, it’s this research group – I’m making it to the finish line of graduate school strongly due to the assistance of everyone in XWCL and CAAO. I hope you, dear reader, get the opportunity to celebrate with who and what you’re thankful for.
Song of the Day
One of my staples growing up was the Charlie Brown holiday specials. My brother and I would watch them on VHS. I think at one point we accidentally had 2 copies of the Charlie Brown Christmas? I probably should watch this again, maybe today (if I don’t fall asleep halfway through from a food coma or writing my dissertation, whichever one comes first).