We had a pine tree that was 2+ stories high growing in our front yard in Jamaica, Stephanie.

Cool! I'll be okay if there's no real tree next year. It's more just intersting to me to see how different people celebrate the holidays. IIRC, January 6th is the big day in PR. I only know this because when I was in the Army, all the Puerto Ricans had the option of taking the 6th off to celebrate Christmas.

Stephanie, that's Three Kings Day or Epiphany.

aka Twelfth Night

Timelies.

I got an A in my Business Law class, but I think my History class is going to kill me. And I'm honestly not exaggerating this time. The teacher likes to "role-play". Write a letter citing your reasons for wanting to be on the Mayflower. Pretend you are Myles Standish and send a report to King James regarding the harvest festivities and your relationship with the indigenous people.

I HATE that kind of stuff. Seriously hate it.

Write a letter citing your reasons for wanting to be on the Mayflower.

"Dear King,

"How are you? Enjoying a first-class quality of life? Avoiding religious persecution? That's swell!

"Me, NOT SO MUCH. My life here is sucking pretty bad, as are my family members' lives. (Except little Geoffrey, who died of the consumption last winter when we couldn't heat our thatch hut. That was fun, let me tell you. He's in a better place now, and the rest of us envy him mightily.)

"I figure that wherever the Mayflower ends up, it couldn't be worse than here, so I ask for your consideration in giving myself and my family passage when she sails.

"Yr. humble servant (but hopefully not for much longer), etc.,

"Thomas P. Groundling"

(Please note, re: my previous post -- I don't know SHIT about history, so all that bit about religious persecution and thatch huts was pulled right out of my ass.)

I was thinking,

Dude.

I totally need to go on the Mayflower. While everyone else is out building a new world, I'll be spending all my time searching for gold. I'll be rich! And I'll totally give half my gold to you! Plus as much of that tobacco stuff you want!

I read what my classmates wrote last week and it is such shite. Letters from women - as if anyone would listen to a woman, offering nursing skills and cooking. Hello - women weren't allowed to say anything back then.

And then Thanskgiving was such an upbeat celebration, forging a positive relationship with the Indians.

GAG ME WITH A SPOON. And the teacher encourages this tripe.

To: james@king.co.uk
From: plebe@thatchhut.co.uk

Subj: Mayflower???

Body: Hut cold, v v hungry. Pls send tix? TTYL!

Women didn't have a choice about going, if their husbands or fathers were going so were they. But from what I've been reading women did write back to other women who were about to make a similiar journey with advice about what to bring and what to expect, etc.

I need to recheck out one of the books by Edmund S. Morgan about Puritan families that I didn't finish. I learned that in certain Purtian colonies it was relatively easy to get a divorce (easy compared to what it would be later in the more stricter areas). Both men and women were allowed to request a divorce for various reasons including a lack of sex life. There are records of women who'd been married for a long time and whose husbands couldn't fufill the marital needs successfully divorcing.