I love it when Thanksgiving is early like this. Thanksgiving
is always the fourth Thursday in November,
not necessarily the last Thursday in November.
So when there are five Thursdays in November, Thanksgiving is a little early.
And that pleases me.
Because that means that the Holiday season is an extra week
longer. Not only is that one more week to get everything done before Christmas,
but that’s one extra week of Christmas music and Christmas lights and Christmas
trees and Christmas shopping and Christmas wrapping and Christmas baking
and Christmas parties…
But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s back up and not
skip over Turkey Day entirely. How was your
Thanksgiving? I hope you were able to spend it with loved ones and enjoy
delicious food. And if so, I hope you counted your blessings and went to sleep that night with a smile.
For the sixth year in a row, we went for a walk on
Thanksgiving morning. Hubs and I didn’t realize we were starting a tradition
that damp and chilly morning in 2007. We hadn’t been dating very long, and I
had just met his parents for the first time a few weeks before. I was a little
nervous about our first family holiday dinner together. He squeezed my hand
while we watched the sun rise over the bay.
Thanksgiving morning 2012 was not at all damp or chilly. And
there was very little stopping to watch anything as we chased our toddler down
the path along the creek. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect fall day.
I talked Hubs into getting our Christmas tree this weekend,
so the three of us went on a mini-adventure to a cute little tree farm in the
Santa Cruz Mountains. Actually, navigating the narrow and twisty mountain road
trying to find the tree farm was the real adventure, but the actual tree
cutting was fun, too. Q, as usual, was fascinated.
Hubs also put up our Christmas lights this weekend. He said
he would put them up, but he wouldn’t turn them on yet. “It’s just too early,”
he said. But then the next day, two of our neighbors put up their lights and
turned them on, so he caved into peer pressure and turned our Christmas lights
on last night, too. Yay!
So the tree has been selected, cut and adorned. The lights
have been strung. The shopping is almost complete. I’ve even designed and
ordered our Christmas cards already! I don’t think I’ve ever been so on top of
things at Christmas.
Now, I get to focus on two of my favorite Christmas things –
wrapping and baking! And this year, I get to
add a third thing to my list of Christmas favorites – decorating. Thanks, of course, to Pinterest. I’m working on a new centerpiece for our dining
room table, something to spruce up the mantle in the living room, and a couple
other fun projects. I’ll be sure to post photos when I’m done.
Yep. I’m a big Yuletide dork.
With the big day still a month away, it’s already beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
