64 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-25-16”

  1. Morning all and good night.
    Just finished the dough for the crescent rolls/croissants and now it is time for some sleep.
    Tomorrow is the store Christmas sale. The only day in the entire year that our store is open on Saturday and with lots of special things they bring in for Christmas.

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  3. One month till Christmas!

    On the topic of “everyone finds that the family they marry into does some things differently”: my mother-in-law and sister-in-law both decorate quite heavily for Christmas (especially my mother-in-law: both have multiple fake trees and other decorations, but Mom has 70 Dickens lighted houses that she displays around the house from before Christmas until Easter each year, complete with extras like fake snow, little people, street lights, and so forth). Well, they have their houses not only heavily decorated, but decorated before Thanksgiving.

    We always got a real tree, decorated only the tree itself (or very little else), and got the tree once trees became cheap, so basically we had a tree from about a week before Christmas to a few days afterward; we decorated it and had fun doing so, and we put wrapped gifts around it and played Christmas music for hours in the week leading up to Christmas.

    I find myself with very little interest in rearranging furniture, putting up a fake tree, and decorating multiple places in the house, and keeping it all up until just after Thanksgiving to whenever in February or March we have a clear enough path to the garage to put stuff away. Last year we got our tree up later than usual (mid-December) and then the girls pleaded to leave it up into March, I think it was. My husband had the conversation without me involved, and when I heard about it, it was “Please include me in conversations like that.” To me, having a house rearranged for months for a fake Christmas tree is nowhere near worth it, and as it turns out, last year I had two big work projects that pretty much needed me to have the house back to normal (I have a big ol’ reading chair that I use for projects I do on hard copy, and that gets moved for the Christmas tree, moved to a place I can’t use it). He ended up renegotiating the “deal” because it affected my work, but really I just can’t wait until Christmas decorating means four weeks at the very most, two weeks even better. That’s one huge advantage of a real tree, that your time with it is naturally limited. I’m fine with using a Christmas tablecloth and Christmas dishes the entire month of December, but I do not want the house decorated from November till spring. Keep it in December and the first week of January. But the girls see other family homes decorated elaborately for months, and to them that is “normal.” To me it’s fine for them, but not for me, and a tree that has been up for more than two or three weeks is like a bunch of overripe bananas–nothing festive about it. It makes me dread the Christmas season even to think about it.

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  4. I confess. I just bought a Black Friday special from Amazon–that I saw on FB.

    I’m so humiliated.

    And I wanted to buy three, but they won’t let me. So I settled for one, but am not above asking other family members to make the same purchase for me . . .

    Head bowed in shame. I AM going hiking today, I think!

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  5. Day two or three of all family all the time. Walking and coffee with one sister-in-law, then after lunch over to take a shift of Adorables. If I’m lucky I’ll get the TWO year-old to nap at another house away from all the girls.

    Tomorrow, I’m going to the UCLA-Cal football game with son and daughter-in-law and nine-year old Adorable. We’re introducing UCLA BAND, er, football, to a fourth generation.

    My toes are already tapping!

    Fun couple of days, but we’re tired.

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  6. So, Michelle, what is the black friday deal? They do now have a $10 off a $25 book order (HOLIDAYBOOK) through 11/27. My husband and I always jump on those deals, and tell the girls, only they rarely do them.

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  8. I will put my tree up today or tomorrow. It will come down around New Year’s. I can’t imagine leaving it up until March. EVEN I am not that much into Christmas.
    I did put the wreaths on the door and the garland over the door yesterday before everyone arrived. I was bored.
    All went well. Mr. P came out of the kitchen into the entry and hugged BG when she got here. The three of us hugged when she left. The Boyfriend came as well. Everyone was nice.
    Again there was too much food and everyone left with a “care package”.

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  10. Cheryl, my sympathies — I think you nailed it, though, when you said it’s all very “normal” for them.

    My family tradition was similar to yours — a live tree (a fake tree my mother would never allow to cross our threshold; ever), maybe a few added things around our tiny house. But the only furniture displacement was for the tree which sat in our living room window on the “coffee” table that was moved to hold it (if it needed, sometimes trees were tall enough not to require the extra height to fit in the window frame nicely from the outside).

    We bought the tree maybe 2 weeks at the most before Christmas and my mom liked to leave it outside for the first couple days where she could water it and it would have some “natural” sun and moisture (though being that it was dead I’m not sure it mattered to the tree at that point, but my mom thought it was healthier 🙂 ).

    Then it always came down on New Year’s Day.

    When they got married, my parent managed to get their first Christmas tree free. For several years they (“we” after I came along) lived in what was a heavily (orthodox) Jewish section of L.A. but my folks, both fairly new transplants from Iowa, weren’t all that aware of those kinds of ethnic nuances when they rented the apartment.

    They didn’t head out to buy a Christmas tree until a couple days before Christmas and couldn’t find a “lot” anywhere, of course. One of the few they found was getting ready to close down so the Jewish owner gave them a tree for free.

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  11. I should probably check on a Black Friday deal for Carol who has asked for the new “Nook” tablet for Christmas. I also uncovered a large color print of Carol and the friend who introduced us — taken outside their Lutheran church in Redondo Beach after some program they invited me to also attend (Maybe for Easter?). It’s a nice picture, Carol is dressed up and her hair is curled, she’s wearing makeup. I sent her a text version but I actually found 2 large prints so will buy a frame for one of them and give that to her for Christmas as well.

    I think I must have taken the photo with my old 35mm Canon (film), maybe that other large print was meant to go to her and never got given, I’m not sure now.

    But it’s back to work for me today to write the Taps story (which will be a breeze, I have a couple live interviews I can quote from along with multiple social media remarks).

    It almost feels like Monday to me today (and I kept thinking last night was Sunday — probably because I worked from home on Wednesday and had yesterday off, it all just felt kind of like a weekend to me).

    The dogs are now using the pet door regularly but Annie hasn’t used it yet to my knowledge. She’ll figure it out when she’s motivated enough. I notice her watching the dogs as they come and go through the ‘magic’ door in the wall.

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  13. I would love to have a “real” Christmas tree, but:
    The ones they ship here are some different kind of tree. Not really pretty
    They are already losing their needles when they get here.
    The fake ones look pretty realistic now and there isn’t much of a mess to clean

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  14. The artificial trees are better now, I have a couple little ones that I usually put out in lieu of buying a “real” one most years now.

    I still laugh at the memory of my hipster aunt and uncle — who managed a “singles” apartment building in the mid-1960s and loved danish modern furniture — buying a foil tree that had one of those spinning color wheels that turned the tree pink, green, blue and red in a dizzying rotation.

    My mom was horrified.

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  15. I’ve also bought the “live” trees planted in cute pails — but you need to figure out where to donate it so it can be planted later.

    Former owners of my house planted theirs in the backyard one year and it’s now gigantic. Or humongous, if you prefer.

    I love the tree, but I’m wondering if they had any idea how big it would grow.

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  16. Relatives still aren’t moving–so I’m still shopping! Just went to CBD and bought the next round of Bible study books–free shipping, so they come in at $5.50 each. I should figure out what I want to teach starting in March while I”m at it!

    We’re going to do an 8 week study on The Messiah–the Texts behind Handel’s Masterpiece. It’s good for Christmas AND Easter, so this is perfect.

    I also bought some clothing items at Land’s End and saved nearly $50 and same free shipping. Looked at suitcases at Amazon, but I think I’ll pass on those–but it’s very tempting.

    Did I mention I hate to shop? I need a new futon mattress . . . .

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  18. DJ, my sister had the same teacher for first grade that I did–in fact, at the end of her first-grade year and my second-grade year, her teacher and my teacher both moved up a grade. So she had our first-grade teacher for second grade as well, and I had a different teacher for second grade and third. (Then when my sister should have had her in third grade, she had cancer and my sister had substitute teachers all but a few days that year. The teacher I had two years, my sister barely had, and then the teacher died when I was in fifth grade. Big loss.)

    Anyway, my sister’s first grade class for some reason got a live Christmas tree and then planted it in front of the school. Hers was the only class ever to do that, but through the years we saw it get large. If it’s still alive now, it is probably very large.

    It might actually be pretty neat for a school to have a whole row of evergreens planted one at a time in such a way, so each class can point out its tree. But since we had three classes per grade, that’s really an unsustainable number of trees. Unless you want to plant them small, and then cut each tree for an indoor cut tree when the class is in eighth grade! But that might bother some kids to do that.

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  19. The tree pictures in the header area are amazing, not in quality of photo, but because we still have leaves on the trees at Thanksgiving. I have never seen that happen in Atlanta before. I heard we had record heat yesterday. I think I’d be okay opening the windows today and wearing a short sleeve T-shirt. The trees have glorious yellow colors. God seems to be going to extreme measures to be sure people are thinking about Him through His creation! ❤

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  20. Janice, we still have a few leaves on trees here. We’re wondering if we will still have some in December. I took photos of a really lovely tree from Dad’s hospital window with the same idea–leaves on Thanksgiving? But then, I photographed a praying mantis and some butterflies several days into November.

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  21. My elementary school had those live trees to plant, Cheryl. Now you’ve stirred a thought that I should go over and see if the trees are still there.

    I would not be agreeable with the tradition of keeping up Christmas decor way past the norm. It’s okay for a “Christmas shoppe” in a tourist town like Helen, Georgia where people can decide if they want to wander through or not. But, if it is the tradition of a family, I would probably try to find ways to be accommodating. I can see how difficult that is to mesh such clashing traditions, Cheryl. I guess they go to so much effort to get it all out and set it up…do they ever speak of downsizing? Soon health issues may demand that. Now is a good time to remember, “This, too, shall pass,” as you strive to keep the peace.

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  22. Since this semester, there are no classes on Thursday (there will be next semester), I spend a good part of Thursday at church. There is a Bible study I go to, then I practice the organ, then I go out and run any errands I need to run. Then I come back and, depending on what is going on that week, do volunteer work for a program for immigrants and/or attend choir practice. The immigrant program I volunteer with was one I volunteered with the last time I stayed in this city. Both times, it was headed by the same lady from the church, since the program is for women and children. This past October, this lady had to stop suddenly, as a cancerous tumor had appeared in her mouth. Yesterday, I learned when I went to the Bible study, that she had passed away. Last evening was the immigrant program, and the women who came openly wept at the news of this lady’s death. One of the other volunteers spoke and shared the story of Lazarus and the hope that we have of the resurrection. The program is very low key and simple, but nonetheless, those who came loved the lady who ran it. Do not discount the small and seemingly insignificant acts of kindness. Sometimes, those are the most effective.

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  23. Janice, Mom’s Christmas display is lovely. She told us she didn’t put up all 70 this year, and we asked how many she used and she told us 61. 🙂 She’s perfectly up to doing it, and it is lovely, so I have no problems with that.

    But generally the woman of the home sets the “tone” of the home in terms of decorating. I went very, very light on redecorating or redoing anything for the first year. I kept up a shelf of cows and chickens that I despised for about two years, used only two or three of my own ornaments the first year. It wasn’t until last year that I said please, let’s replace the Christmas angel topper (I really don’t like girl angels) and my husband said he doesn’t like nativity sets (and it turns out that three of the four of us were in agreement on that, so we didn’t put any up).

    At any rate, I work from my home and am here all the time; one of our daughters is married and out of the house, and the other has two jobs and a class so she isn’t home nearly as much as I am. So I’m inclined to say let’s do the Christmas stuff for a month, but after that I really need my “home” back. Also, one year we had stuff up well into March simply because we had so much snow we couldn’t get it to the garage sooner, and the next year it was well into February–and I found it depressing. So my thought is get it down before we get into the heavy snow months when we might get stuck with it longer again. Get it down before the first January snow, or if we get a January 1 snow then get it down at the earliest possible opportunity after that. But winter is dark enough without having to tolerate Christmas clutter for all of it.

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  24. There is no room for a tree in my tiny room 🙂 However, this week, my parents put up their tree. My two siblings who live near them came with their children to help decorate. It is an artificial tree, but it has more space for all the beautiful ornaments that my family has accumulated over the years, from the antique glass balls and cones to the recent Hallmark limited edition ornaments that one of my mother’s friends likes to give her. My parents will keep on putting up a tree as long as eldest sibling and her family come to stay for Christmas, and to hear eldest sibling’s 14, 12, 9, and 5 year olds excited anticipation about visiting their grandparents (the 3 year old is a bit young to have a clear opinion), they will keep coming as long as possible. However, it may not be always in the same house.

    My parents built their house while my mother was expecting her eldest, so all four of their children were brought home from the hospital to that house. The trees around the house are about the same age as us, though they have grown much taller. Nonetheless, as my father has completed his 70th year, they are finding the property a bit much to handle. A discussion of them selling their house and using the money to help one of my married siblings buy a house of their own has been discussed for a couple of years. A plan is finally taking shape. Youngest sibling’s parents-in-law want to help youngest sibling and spouse to a house, so they are being taken care of. That leaves second sibling and her spouse, since eldest sibling’s family already has a house of their own. Second sibling in-law is an independent man, and it has taken him a while to accept the idea of help. The plan is being carefully formulated, and may take a year or more to carry out. I have been reassured by all parties that I will not be left out in the cold, not that I was worried about that since all my siblings-in-law treat me very well. However, it is necessary to sell the old homestead, which will be a wrench not only for my parents (who are fully in agreement with the plan), but also for my siblings and I, and the grandchildren who are old enough to have learned to love the place.

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  25. I love to have my house all rearranged and decorated for Christmas, but I usually have the real tree out of the house on New Year’s day and that starts the taking down of everything else which is usually done very quickly.

    Decorating for Christmas is one way that I simplify the house for the rest of the year. Pictures and stuff get put up through the year and then at Christmas I take them down for the decorations and afterwards not all of the ‘regular’ stuff goes back up 🙂 Husband doesn’t miss stuff that way.

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  26. Beautiful reading through yesterday’s postings of what you’re thankful for. May I share a day late?

    (BTW, I read yesterday’s thread listening to the following music, Relaxing Hymns of Thanksgiving & Worship, which was a lovely complement to all your expressions of gratitude.)

    (My list below the video.)

    As I’ve said in the past, I am grateful for the Lord’s mercy and grace. The gift of salvation is indescribable. Unfathomable.

    I’ve noted many earthly blessings, also, in past Thanksgiving Day posts here, so this time I will list blessings received this past year.

    I am thankful the Lord lifted me out of a many-years-in-duration depression. Enormous joy after He’d graciously brought me all the way through it.

    I am thankful for my husband’s successful hernia surgery. For my 15-year-old daughter’s restored health after months of illness. For the measure of healing the Lord has granted my parents after each of their health issues that came up this year.

    I am thankful for my older son’s getting a job in his field. A job which, two weeks in, is becoming very enjoyable to him.

    I am thankful for new friendships forged through my new memberships in independent music teachers’ organizations.

    I am thankful for insomnia, because when I wake up at night, I am especially reminded of the blessing of a warm bed and my husband by my side to cuddle with.

    And… I’m sure I’m forgetting some new blessings I’ve received since last Thanksgiving, but there is one more — that just occurred yesterday — for which I am grateful almost beyond words…

    Our family went to church yesterday morning. After the service ended and we were waiting to be ushered out, I looked down to the other end of the pew where my special-needs son was sitting on the end. There next to him, down on one knee in the aisle, was a young father with his son, perhaps about five or six years old, standing at his side as his dad engaged my son in face-to-face conversation.

    It doesn’t take long, when in the presence of my son, for most people to figure out that he displays some unusual characteristics. For those who start a conversation with him (very few), most give up soon when they discover his language challenges.

    Not this man. I watched him as he smiled, nodded, spoke to my son, and listened with perfect eye contact as he drew out my son in conversation. Genuine interest and encouragement was written all over the man’s face.

    I can’t tell you how my heart was warmed, watching that exchange from a distance.

    When we were ushered out, the man introduced himself to me (a principal at a school several hours from us) and pointed out my son’s good behavior, asked me how many kids we had, and then said what a blessing from God my boy was.

    Yes, indeed, I wanted to tell him, but I could hardly speak, I was so moved by the kindness he had shown my son.

    Then he said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Ma’am” (can’t remember the last time I was called “Ma’am”) and disappeared into the crowd.

    Maybe because it’s so fresh in my mind, but that encounter was probably one of the most blessed things I ever witnessed — a stranger taking a fleeting opportunity to express affirmation to one of God’s precious children.

    Thank you, Lord, for a stranger’s clear display of the love of Christ in action. A most moving Thanksgiving. My heart is overflowing with gratitude for Your many blessings.

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  27. 6 Arrows, one of our church members has a “special needs wife” (mental issues). She is now elderly and deaf, and she rarely comes to church. When she does come, she usually sits mutely in the service or sits downstairs during the service. Lately she has become somewhat talkative, and one day I was talking to her husband when she came over to me, put her hand on my arm, and said something like the following: “Do you like this blouse? It was made it Cambodia, and we got it at Costco.” I said oh, very pretty. And she then repeated, “Costco, Cambodia,” and then it was a sea of gibberish. I maintained eye contact, nodding or saying “MM-hmmm” periodically. Her husband stood over to the side sheepishly, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know where she gets this stuff” and shaking his head. And I said to him, “It’s OK. She’s fine.” I felt bad for him because he clearly felt awkward. But his wife was made in the image of God, too, and for 40 years he has loved her, getting little in return. It’s not too much to ask that we in the church love her as well as we can, too, when she is in our midst. I’d want others to do that if it were my father-in-law on a bad day or someone else I love, or someday me. Thirty years ago I’m not sure I would have known how to handle it, but that day it just seemed the most natural thing in the world to “stay with her” and continue to engage. But maybe that’s this side of having lost someone I loved dearly to Alzheimer’s.

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  29. Does anyone here make their own hummus? I like the Sabra Classic texture and taste, so that is what I would prefer to imitate if possible. Does anyone have a recipe and hints about how to make a good batch?

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  30. Our church is filled with retired and active teachers, principals, superintendents. And they are always most gracious and kind to my children. I am well used to the greet and flee attitude of so many when they realize the conversation will be challenging. But at church, my children are always spoken with and engaged. It is warming to see. One guy who was a superintendent is especially attentive and he truly seems to understand my children. Always a blessing to see them treated as real people with real thoughts and feelings.

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  31. I made Johnny Cakes yesterday to have with our smoked turkey meal. I used about half flour and half cornmeal mix. Next time I will use more cornmeal. My mother made those, but I never got her recipe. I think maybe she used all cornmeal. They turned out to be a nice “something different.”

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  32. It’s interesting to see which fields of employment are attracted to specific churches. My husband’s Methodist church has quite a few retired pastors, and some lawyers. My Baptist church has more of a mixed bag of people, some in the medical field, homeschool families, students attending nearby universities, and tech type fields. Not many, if any, lawyers attend my church.

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  34. Thank you for the wonderful music, 6 Arrows.

    I can’t believe all you guys are putting everything up for Christmas. The Thanksgiving turkey is barely cold! I didn’t even put up a proper tree last year, but I did have a wreath on the door. No one seems to miss it now that the kids don’t make it in for Christmas any more on a regular basis. I’ll probably do something in a couple of weeks, and it will be all packed away by the middle of January.

    Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. And nature is so cooperative with the abundance of yellows and bright reds! It’s absolutely glorious!

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  35. I did put a wreath on the front door, pitiful thing that it is! I will decorate the Burberry bush at the mailbox for our Christmas tree. I found some cards I as stashed away to get busy with soon. I will include bookmarks with the cards that have a listing of all the names of Jesus.

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  37. Working on my grandmother and great-aunt of the year prize–I’ve got t-shirts from the dollar store and we’re now going to decorate them. Hopefully one of my daughter-in-laws will take a nap.

    Tomorrow? UCLA football!

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  38. Cheryl, that’s a nice story. Indeed, we are all made in Christ’s image, and staying with the lady you mentioned, and engaging with her, was the right thing to do.

    Janice, 2:58, I was thinking almost that exact thing, that, while I’ve never, to my knowledge, encountered an angel, that man’s presence seemed almost angelic because of the encounter’s brevity and the blessing that came of it. I had a strange “What just happened” feeling as I stood quietly in one of the lines exiting the church after he had moved off in a different direction.

    Mumsee, what a blessing your children are always spoken with and engaged at church. We have over 1,000 members, and there are precious few who have ever tried to dialogue with son beyond one statement or question. Maybe because in a large church there are so many more people who can be conversed with much easier. Or many more people one can assume could engage my son instead.

    Debra, you’re welcome. I love those hymns, too, and found the music so peaceful.

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  39. Janice, I rarely make hummus any more. But when I did, it was always with canned chickpeas, 1T tahini paste, and a small (or 1/2) clove of smashed garlic (and salt to taste if you use salt). Blend thoroughly, and drizzle a good olive oil on top. It’s not a bad base to experiment adding other herbs or ingredients.

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  41. Janice, I recently made Jacque Pepin’s White Bean Dip which is sort of like hummus and was advised to find a “greener” olive oil to drizzle over it as it has more of a fresher taste.

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  42. I had good intentions about leaving all my Fall & Thanksgiving items out for at least a few days yet, but last night I sat in the living room and started mentally rearranging the furniture, thinking of where we could put the Christmas tree when the time comes, and suddenly found myself actually moving that furniture here and there around the room, which led to…

    …today the Christmas tree is up. 🙂

    When you come up the steps of our split-level home, there’s an inside wall (don’t know if that’s the right word — Kim will help me 😉 ) straight ahead, separating the kitchen from the living room area. We usually have a small table with two drawers against that wall, and that table gets moved to the master bedroom when the Christmas tree is up, so that the tree can be by the window, and the big table near the window (on which we usually kept books) gets moved to where the small table was.

    Only this year, said big table holds the 40-gallon turtle tank I mentioned the other day.

    That table is moving nowhere this season!

    I still wanted to have the Christmas tree in front of the window, and there would be room there for it, despite the presence of the big table in that general area, but then we would have to move either the couch or loveseat over to the wall straight ahead when you’re standing at the top of the stairway. So I tried moving the couch over there.

    Too long.

    Moved the loveseat there instead.

    It fit, but anyone sitting on it would feel like they were more in the hallway than in the living room, since it’s more like the entry to the living room (sort of narrow) than the room itself.

    Finally, after moving the small table to my bedroom, I ended up with the rest of the living room furniture as it had been, except the couch and loveseat switched places (couch by the window, instead of placing the loveseat or the tree there), and a rectangular end table in the corner between the couch and loveseat got moved a quarter turn and is sporting a lamp from a different location.

    The kids loved the new room arrangement, even though not a lot had changed, and the tree is now, as of this morning, in its new placement in front of the wall just beyond the top of the steps. An artificial tree, perfect size for the wall, and, wonder of all wonders, ALL THE LIGHTS STILL WORK FROM LAST YEAR!!

    We found all the decorations we hang on the tree, but can’t find some of the other non-tree Christmas decor. Oh, well. Maybe that’s better, anyway. I don’t decorate throughout the house, only in the living room, and it’s a small room, so less is more. (Especially now with that big reptile tank in there, lol.)

    Christmas has come to our living room, but some of the fall decor made it to the master bedroom, so I will enjoy autumn and Thanksgiving for a while yet in that part of the house.

    We’re kind of eclectic around here. 🙂

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  43. I still have the (fake) evergreen wreath on my front door from last Christmas. I don’t have to put it out this year that way. (Kim, hide your eyes, you didn’t read that.)

    I figured it was kind of neutral looking …

    At least I took the string of blinking lights and little ornaments out of it after Christmas last year.

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  44. My tree isn’t up. I have been playing with the mantle and I have hurricane lanterns/candle holders that I put some ornaments in and drizzled some fake snow over. Down South we call that piddlin’. I’ve piddled today. I would move furniture around a little but someone who shall remain nameless is opinionated.
    I did a Broker’s Property Opinion today but my internet connection is so slow that I can’t get everything uploaded, so I am waiting until tomorrow to do that. GUY has called me twice today and sent two texts for things he needed. Ugh. Can’t he take a holiday off???

    I have moved a round table into the living room. I like the table but I can’t get anything on it that I like. I did find two Audubon looking prints to go on that wall. They are nicely framed. I asked and the shopkeeper told me he could only give me a 10% discount which would cover my tax. I can’t make up my mind.

    I have always wanted to have collection of antique oyster plates to hang on my dining room wall. I want them to be mismatched (we found a set of 6 in an antique store and Mr. P asked me why didn’t I buy them all and be done with it He doesn’t understand that the hunt is part of the fun). Anyway I found this one in an antique store. They had it priced at $85 but the store is having to close because a restaurant bought their space and everything was 25% off, so I got a discount.
    https://www.rubylane.com/item/408508-1024×202643/Antique-Oyster-Plate-Lanternier-Limoges-Fancy?search=1

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  47. There must be a lot of traffic at that site, Kim. I clicked on the link, and round and round went the little whatever you call it, preparing to open the site. After about 10 or 15 seconds of that, I got impatient and hit the <- to come back here. 🙂

    Just discovered I have 13 Christmas cards, about 30 less than I need. I should have bought some on after-Christmas sales, but sometimes I just don't feel like going into the stores right after the holidays. Bah humbug.

    Don't know if I'll do a Christmas newsletter this year. I just reread my last year's letter and, really, it was kind of boring, though I think some recipients did remark last year that they liked it. I don't really have much new to report, other than that 1st Arrow got hired in his field, which would be a follow-up to my noting in last year's letter that he graduated with his IT degree in August and was looking for employment in his field.

    A lot of people on my Christmas mailing list would already know that, though.

    My husband made some remark a few months ago about maybe not sending a Christmas newsletter this year, now that I think of it. I can't remember exactly what he said. I'll have to ask him about that.

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  48. Janice, that’s the Sunday gathering coming up in two days. 🙂 But it won’t be at my house, so we’ll see how he conducts himself there. I might get some more ideas about how to brace myself if we have Christmas at our house. 😉

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  52. Green bean casserole, never had it growing up. And I don’t think I ever had it until my children started making it for Thanksgiving about nine years ago. I like it fine. Especially when cousin made it yesterday. She used some of the green beans husband canned a couple of years ago. Delicious and all gone. All of the children like it and like to make it.

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  53. Last night, D3 wanted to put the wreath on her door, but D2 wouldn’t let her until Thanksgiving was over. So after we had eaten and cleaned up she asked if she could do it, but was told to wait. I imagine she waited until 12:01 this morning. It’s her house, but D2 lived there until she got married, and I think it might have even been her wreath that a former employer gave her.

    We never put much up, especially since we are rarely at home for Christmas. This year will be an exception, as all the children are coming here Christmas Eve and staying the night. Well, some of them will stay at a friends’ house since I don’t think our 3 bedroom will handle 8 adults (3 married couples and our two adult children) and five little children.

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  55. Leftovers are one of the great pleasures of Thanksgiving. All the favorite foods, and none of the cooking!!

    This year there were 8 of us at the Thanksgiving table, but I made enough for 16 so I could send leftovers home with all of them. And our refrigerator still has more than enough left. We’re really blessed. :–)

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  56. I do miss leftovers.

    I finished my Taps story & added to another chain-wide story (about Small Business Saturday which is tomorrow) so the week (finally) is done for me.

    I’m going to make chili tonight. Tomorrow I need to make a baked spaghetti casserole for the mission but I bought enough for two as it’s an easy one to take to Christmas parties as well.

    There are 2 dog park Christmas parties planned (one by the “old” group that doesn’t come much anymore, the other by the “new” group that does). And our church party is 2 Saturdays from now, I think, I’m taking another church member who lives near me but doesn’t like to drive at night anymore. She’s fun to talk to as she’s a BSF discussion group leader (which I was for many years in the past) so I get all the updates on what’s going on with that program.

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  58. Lovely to see you all here the day after….I do miss Chas when he is away….. 🙂
    Crazy busy day at the shoppe…most everyone was pleasant which makes it for a better day at work….a couple of customers did break a couple things without so much as a “I’m so sorry”…they just tuck the item away somewhere and leave the store!
    It was a chaotic day at our home yesterday….lots of family, lots of food, lots of banging on the piano downstairs…daughter and family left at 9…other daughter and family who are staying with us were still up when I went to bed at 9:30….can this holiday just be over with already?!!!! 😎 bah humbug!!

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  62. Who doesn’t have wifi?

    Jo, it’s fun to get updated on BSF — I was surprised to hear leaders no longer need to wear dresses/skirts!? Wow.

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