Much to Be Thankful For This Thanksgiving

We have much to be thankful for this holiday season and Thanksgiving was wonderful this year.  I so enjoyed the week off to decompress and get some cleaning and other little projects done around the house that had been neglected for a couple of weeks and to just enjoy some time off with my little family.

For almost all of my life we have celebrated Thanksgiving at my aunt’s home, but in the past few years we have moved that gathering to my aunt’s little country church because we have so many people joining us now.  Their church is small and consists of a sanctuary, a dining area, kitchen, and bathrooms, and they may only have 20 or so members in total, but they are faithful and take such excellent care of their place of worship.  We all gather in the sanctuary to visit before lunch and it’s just a pretty little place to celebrate how much we have to be thankful for.

We usually arrive at least an hour before lunch and visit with the family.  Pretty soon, it’s time to give thanks and to dig in to this wonderful spread of food we always have.  My aunt makes THE best dressing ever ever ever, and everyone brings a dish to share.

You know you’ve reached a parenting milestone when your kid fixes his own plate without supervision and guidance.  My husband and I were high-fiving each other on that one!  Ha!

Of course, when we came home we all vegged out and took our naps and just hung out watching tv and playing on the computer.  Around 5:30 PM I remembered that I needed something from the store to make our own little holiday meal we always do in our own home the day after Thanksgiving, and the only place open in town was Walmart.  Now, I am NOT a Black Friday (or Thursday) shopper, but I had NO clue that the masses would be out in droves waiting on those early-bird deals on a THURSDAY!  The parking lot was slap full when we arrived, but I had no fear!  All we needed was one or two things and we could get out.  Not so.  We also decided we needed a new Christmas tree, so we had to get into the heart of the store.  Hubby saw deals!  I saw a few more household things we needed.  And suddenly, we were caught up in the crowds.  When it was time to check out, the lines were all backed up into the clothing sections behind EVERY register.

I threatened to leave the cart right there, but hubby insisted we wait it out.  Finally, a helpful worker got the line we were in moving quickly and directed people to other registers opening up.  We only had to wait in line about 7 minutes total and I was SO relieved!

The next day, the Christmas decorations went up!  This is my first Christmas in our new home (I was at my mom’s house recovering from heart surgery last Christmas), so most of the day was spent with me excitedly putting up all of our Christmas décor.  THAT was a huge job!  I’m so glad we decided to get the new tree, though.  I have never had a REAL Christmas tree in my entire life, but this artificial one turned out so much prettier than I could have imagined.

I was also cooking for our meal later that night and on my feet pretty much all day and most of the evening.  We had our little meal and I resorted to Kraft mac and cheese because I was just too exhausted to make this amazing mac and cheese recipe I normally make.  It was still fantastic and I went to bed tired and stuffed!

Can you tell I like cranberry sauce juuuuust a little bit?

And now it’s Sunday evening and the week of family fun and good food is over.  I am greatly looking forward to the Christmas holidays coming up and hope I can plow through the next three weeks with as little stress as possible.  Kind of hard to do when you work in a school, though!  Ha!

I hope you and your family and friends had a beautiful thanksgiving.