The Holiday Season

Even though the stores have had Christmas decorations out since the day after Halloween (ugh!) the holiday season, for me, officially began on Friday....BLACK Friday!
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Wait a second...back up.
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Thanksgiving WAS wonderful, just as I predicted. We left here about noontime and drove a couple hours up to Hubby's sister's house and visited for an hour or so with them and Grammie and Bumpy. Then we made our way about 3 miles to L&R's place...which they share with R's mother and grandmother (everyone has plenty of their own space so don't freak out that the 4 of them are sharing a small little ranch or anything...they're just fine!).
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R's mom had to work until 4...which was then pushed until 6 :( so she didn't get a chance to visit before or even during dinner (boo!) but R's grandmother did a fantastic job of preparing the meal and getting all of us to the table in a timely fashion to eat all the yummy yummy food - turkey (of course), mashed potatoes, squash, peas, candied carrots, stuffing (the BEST ever! lots of mushrooms and onions - I was in stuffing heaven!), cranberry sauce and this really odd looking green jello stuff with crushed pineapple that turned out to be super good!!! Then dessert was pumpkin pie, blueberry pie and a wicked good citrus cake that R's sister whipped up for us all. By the time we were done I was well on my way to a food coma and had a heck of a time keeping my eyes open while driving the 2 hours home...good thing Hubby was there to chat with and a local gas station was open with CHEAP! HOT! GOOD! coffee of which I bought a ginormous cup of to help ward off the tryptophan that threatened to drag me into napping (so not safe while driving!).
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Anyhoo...the Holiday Season began at 4am Friday when the 3 of us dragged ourselves out of bed and headed out to get some deals. We struck out at our first stop (Wallyworld....grrrr...they got a scathing email from me about the fact that less than 5 minutes after they claimed to open people were walking out of the store with carts FULL of stuff....don't try and tell me they didn't open their doors early...there was NO WAY people could have gone in, loaded up their cart, checked out and been on their way to their car in less than 5 minutes. Did I mention GRRRRRR?!?). We DID, however, have a TON of luck at another big retailer (the one with the big red circle! LOVE it!) where I got 2 more games for the Leapster for the price of one since they were all on sale AND I had a coupon for $5 off! SWEET! Plus a couple other odds and ends. We left home about 4:30am and were back by 9am where we commenced a day full of lounging around and watching movies...I threw a pot roast in the crock pot the minute we got home so dinner was at 5 and Iz was in bed by 6....Hubby and I managed to keep our eyes open until 8 but it wasn't easy, people! :)
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Saturday I headed to a local high school for their HUGE holiday craft fair and got a cute little gift for my in-laws, some blackberry jam and some YUMMY fudge!
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Sunday we checked out SnL's new house that they had closed on this past Wednesday! So excited for them to have a house of their own! Can't wait until they get everything settled and moved in and have a PARTY! I'm a sucker for a good get-together!
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Now I'm making my list (and checking it twice). This week includes putting up the tree and decorations (tomorrow), getting Iz's Christmas pictures done (Wednesday), and figuring out what else we need to buy so we're not scrambling last-minute (it's a nice thought, at least). We have a few parties that we've been invited to so I need to pick up some Yankee Swap gifts AND find a babysitter for Saturday the 12th (anyone? anyone?). The nice thing is that we have Christmas Day all to ourselves...no one's coming here and we're not going anywhere. So, after the next few weeks of total chaos we'll be able to sit back and enjoy the holiday the way it's supposed to be!
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26 more days...EEK! I'd better make some more lists!!!
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