Holiday Joy

I feel like I have Thanksgiving weekend hangover. I am exhausted today. Yesterday we went to my Mom's for dinner since my brother, who was unable to attend my Thanksgiving dinner, was coming to visit. It was Thanksgiving all over again. Round 2 of cooking, serving and cleaning up. Then at home, it's all about decorating. Boxes and boxes and more boxes of decorations keep coming out of the attic. It's partly my fault. I collect nutcrackers and storing them is difficult since the boxes tend to get pretty heavy the more you pile in them. So we try to spread them out into numerous boxes. We're not talking just a few boxes. I have close to 80 nutcrackers - some of them rather large. I just spent the past hour trying to organize them on my fireplace hearth only to realize I have another box full of them to put out. Did I mention I'm exhausted?

O Christmas Tree

After sleeping the day away yesterday, hubby decided to put up the Christmas tree last night. I was thrilled because he did this while I was getting baby boy to bed. By the time I came downstairs, he had only the top 2 rows of the artificial tree left to do. Woo Hoo!!! Dodged that bullet. It's not that I don't like putting up the tree, I do. I just don't like the lights. Hubby came up with a system that makes it less painful. As he puts on each row, he covers that row with lights. Next row goes on and more lights. Definitely makes it easier and the tree actually looks more lit, especially from within since the inside actually has some lights. My job is putting the ornaments on. No small task since I have hundreds upon hundreds of ornaments. I will post a before-ornament and an after-ornament pic so you can see just how many I have. I love a full tree. Each year I try to get a new ornament to add to it. Everyone thinks I'm crazy and I have too many but, really, it makes me happy. And that's what counts!

Photo Friday

This was an annual tradition when I was growing up - putting up the trains on the day after Thanksgiving. Looks like we're carrying on this tradition, or at least trying to.

My Black Friday

Another Thanksgiving over, another holiday to prepare for. Call me crazy but I've already started putting up some of the Christmas decorations at 9am this morning. I changed the dining room tablecloth to red, swapped out my Thanksgiving/Fall decorative plates to Christmas ones, and even put out some Christmas kitchen towels. I figure while I'm in the mood, I might as well get it done. I'm pretty sure we're going to start putting up the tree today. Absolutely NO Black Friday shopping for me. I've never done it before and there's no reason to start now. I know there are probably some great deals out there, but I have no desire to deal with crowds after I dealt with my own crowd of family yesterday. My Black Friday will be full of Christmas decorating - not so black after all.

Thanksgiving Day

Whew! I made it to turkey day. There were no casualties yesterday, although my lower back was bitching and moaning and my right arm could've used a sling. But other than that, the kids weren't too bad and I was able to get my cooking done. Here we are, 8:30am Thanksgiving Day, and I'm getting ready to prep the turkey. First I have to clean out that cavity again (yuck) and salt the hell out of it to kill any bacteria. Then I'm going to salt, pepper and butter the hell out of it, stuff it full of stuffing, stitch it shut, tie it together and shove it in the oven. Sounds so violating, but I'll be soooooooooo glad once it's actually in the oven. My time with it will be over and, I can move on to getting the house ready. With any luck, a sense of relief and accomplishment will carry me through the rest of family time, which is just as stressful as cooking a turkey.