Monday, November 26, 2012

The most wonderful time of the year {Quinn’s Weekend Adventures}


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