Thanksgiving Weekend

And so it begins…the tree is up, four evening fires crackled in our fireplace this past weekend, and three of our holiday classic movies have already been checked off our list (Elf, Home Alone and Sound of Music).

The kids’ anticipation for the countdown is electric enough to power our house–although if Dash asks me one more time how come it’s not Christmas today when we told him Christmas comes after Thanksgiving, I’m going to have a Christmas Breakdown which we all know is a real thing.

Before I dump the Blog Documentation of Our Thanksgiving into this space, I’d like to stand on the mountaintop and give a quick little sermon about Christmas Breakdowns since sermon mountaintops were Jesus’s thing, and this is, after all, his birthday (Go Jesus! It’s your birthday–we gonna party like it’s your birthday!). This is the sermon I tell myself this next month, and it goes like this: The holiday to-do list that has the potential to make you feel overwhelmed or rushed or spent or too caught up in the bullshit to enjoy this special time of year? You invented that list, so you are the boss of that list. You can fire anyone at any time. You can eliminate jobs, cross unnecessary things off the list, cut the budget, cancel meetings, and call for breaks at any time. Do not let the holiday season boss you. You boss the season.

Very well then, let’s move on, shall we?  We hosted our 13th (14th? Can’t keep track anymore) Thanksgiving Pajama Breakfast with neighbors this year which is really just a great excuse not to run the local Turkey Trot. When friends ask if I want to run it, it’s really fun to answer, “Oh shoot–I would, but I’m going to be in my pajamas eating pancakes, darn it.”

Also, I need you to know that a day before I drew this turkey in our driveway, with highly pigmented art chalk that will take 18 rainy seasons to disappear yet still leaving a trace outline of feathers, Brett paid to have our driveway power washed.

This is my definition of holiday happiness–family, pajamas, twinkle lights, living room fire, Christmas music. The rest is just extra.

We always play the Macy’s parade–all through breakfast. I love the holiday commercials in between, especially the Macy’s ones. This one was so beautiful and made me tear up, although I laughed at how many people direct messaged me after I posted something on stories about it, saying how stressed out they were over the little styrofoam snow messing up the fictional spaceship and causing mechanical failure.

This one was precious too. As much as holiday commercialism can be a little much, I will always be inspired by good story-telling in marketing and how brilliantly advertisers can make you feel something with a commercial. Holiday commercials are my favorite.

The kids ran to the door when they saw our neighbors walking up our driveway. They know the Thanksgiving drill.

And I love how, no matter how beautiful I set our table, when the meal is over, we always end up huddled over the kitchen counter.

Later in the day, we made our pies. Lainey made and rolled out the crusts with very little supervision this year. Train ’em young.

…and off to Brett’s parents for dinner.

The rest of the holiday week was spent doing our favorite holiday things.

Eating…

Beaching it…

…and huddling together at night for movies and games.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Sound of Music, and let me just tell you this: Captain von Trapp is way hotter than I remember.

As much as I don’t want to wake up and start the school routine again this week, as I remind the kids, there is so much magic sprinkled into our every day this month. The good wouldn’t be so good if there wasn’t work to be done to earn it.

Your holiday homework this week: Don’t be a pushover boss. You tell your holiday to-do list how it’s going to go. Cross something off if you need to. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I’m continually grateful for this community.