Serving Thanksgiving dinners
Another try at Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’
Santa Barbara Rescue Mission celebrates holiday - A3
CBS All Access adaptation is among new programs - A7
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A holiday out of this world Astronauts celebrate Thanksgiving at International Space Station
By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
CENTRAL COAST PICTURES/SOLVANGUSA.COM
A bust of Hans Christian Andersen, a famous Danish author, overlooks Solvang Park during Julefest 2019, the city’s annual Christmas festival.
Spread cheer, not germs Solvang’s Julefest celebration proceeds with caution By ANNELISE HANSHAW NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Every year, Solvang decorates Mission Drive and holds shows, wine tastings and pictures with Santa Claus. This year will look different to prevent the spread of COVID-19. IDK Events, an event management company from San Francisco, started directing Julefest a few months before last year’s festival. This year, the business has been tasked to create a Christmas experience while keeping everyone safe during the festival, which begins Saturday
with modifications. “We’ve had to drastically change some of the things that we did last year. But I think that we’re still able to produce a really appropriate event for both the time and the town,” said Scott Shuemake, president and founding partner of IDK Events. Current COVID-19 protocols don’t allow gathering, so his team is focusing on highlighting Solvang’s businesses. “We’re focusing on light and decor, and the town itself lends itself really well to that Christmas feeling of comfort,” he said. Even without swaths of
evergreen, Solvang feels like the holidays. It even inspired a Lifetime Christmas movie, “A Very Charming Christmas Town,” which started airing Nov. 8 on the cable channel. “The Danes love Christmas,” said David Watts, owner of a yearround Christmas store called Jule Hus. “There’s that happy glean in the eye of a Dane when they discuss the Christmas season,” said the Solvang store owner. Mr. Watts said his mom noticed Solvang’s love for Christmas when they moved there in 1959. Every store in the city seemed to have
a portion of its shop dedicated to Christmas. Jule Hus is all Christmas, all the time. Mr. Watts has owned the store since the original owners retired 28 years ago. He said he’ll miss Julefest’s nativity pageant the most this year. He used to play King Herod in the production and always loved teaching his kids about the religious aspects. He wasn’t a fan of the flair IDK Events brought last year and said it was “not in character with the village.” Please see julefest on A6
This Thanksgiving, countless family members, friends and loved ones were unfortunately many hours and miles away from each other. Seven individuals were, in fact, worlds away. The International Space Station hosted seven crew members on Thanksgiving, the most ever in its 20 years of having humans aboard. The crew included NASA astronauts Kate Rubins, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi; and Russian cosmonauts Sergey KudSverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov. They all took a day off from working on the space station and sat down for a special meal together, sharing traditions and phoning home to catch up with loved ones. “The year 2020 is a tough one, but it’s also the year of Perseverance and the year of Resilience, and I really hope every one of you cherish every moment with your friends and family,” Mr. Noguchi said in a CNN story, referencing the names of the Perseverance rover and the SpaceX Crew-1 capsule Resilience. This past Thanksgiving was Mr. Hopkins’ second Thanksgiving in space. “For me, Thanksgiving is all about family,” he said in the CNN story. “This year, I’m spending it with my international family. We all feel very blessed to be up here, and we’re very grateful for everything we have.” Back on Earth, NASA helped develop the tiny, highly efficient video cameras that allow virtual
family dinners. In fact, it was the first space agency to modernize conference calling, so NASA can be thanked for Zoom meetings and virtual happy hours. The first Thanksgiving celebrated in space occurred on Nov. 22, 1973, with Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William R. Pogue. They were on the seventh day of their 84-day mission and consumed two meals at dinner. The standard menu for NASA astronauts in space is turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. However, some astronauts save special items to share such as smoked salmon and cranberry sauce, which in outer space, perfectly retains the shape of the can from which it came. NASA is faced with the task of ensuring all the food is safe to eat, and actually spearheaded efforts to improve food safety around the world, a movement that continued over the next few decades. The push began in the early 1960s in attempts to provide safe food for the astronauts on the Gemini and Apollo missions. The Apollo Program Office focused heavily on identifying and controlling any potential points of failure in the food production process where hazards could be introduced. This led to the formation of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system, and all the companies putting food on the table for Thanksgiving to this day use this approach. The businesses cite it as a major reason for the reduction in foodborne illness. Thanks to the HACCP, which was invented at the Johnson Space Center to ensure safety of the Apollo astronauts’ food, turkey Please see NASA on A10
Groceries and generosity United Way, Albertsons donate 40 Thanksgiving meals By ANNELISE HANSHAW NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Lights are strung throughout Solvang, giving a holiday glow. This year, the Julefest organizers are focusing on lights and decor because the shows are canceled because of COVID-19.
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United Way of Santa Barbara County teamed up with Albertsons in Goleta for the annual Albertsons Turkey Bucks fundraiser. The city’s two Albertsons stores collected donations to buy 40 local families a Thanksgiving meal. The families received a Thanksgiving feast that included turkey, pumpkin pie, King’s Hawaiian rolls, Sig Café broccoli or creamed spinach, fruit, russet potatoes and Signature Select Butter Top Bread. Girls Inc., Hope Elementary School District and Harding Elementary School helped
identify the 40 families in need. “We are extremely grateful to work with Albertsons, especially during this hard year, to help give families in need a Thanksgiving meal,” said Steve Ortiz, president and CEO of UWSBC. “With the pandemic only adding to regular holiday stresses, we are happy to provide a meal for families who would otherwise go without a Thanksgiving meal,” he said. A mom of two told the United Way chapter that she was overjoyed that she didn’t have to worry anymore about possibly not giving her kids a traditional Thanksgiving meal. email: ahanshaw@newspress.com
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