I don't know about you, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. You get all of the delicious food of Christmas without the stress of gift-giving and decorating and to-do lists a mile long. And the best part - you get to spend the day (or the long weekend!) with your favorite people!
Dan has been travelling nonstop for work, but he made it home from Seattle on Wednesday evening wit no issues. He was flying through Detroit so we worried about weather delays. Peter thankfully only had to work a half day and made it home from Raliegh about the same time Dan did. And Sarah came home from Charlotte earlier that morning so I had all of my people in the house!!
I always say that a full table equals a full heart! Sorry for the big face but this is the only way I can document the full table. :)
After lunch, we headed to Old Salem to try to get some family pictures for the Christmas card. We forced my brother to play photographer and thought we had some good ones until I got home and downloaded them and....yikes...Here are some of the out takes...
 |
| Blurry, out of focus, why does Dan always look like he's in pain? Also, we are in the bottom half of the photo. |
 |
| This was taken after just realizing that Sarah was giving me and Peter rabbit ears. (Which also happens to be the best picture and just might be going on Christmas card.) |
 |
| I'm annoyed but look how please she is with herself! |
 |
| So dark and the sun was in our eyes and Sarah is making quite the face. |
 |
| Would have been a good picture except that Dan is wearing his sunglasses! WHY!!!??? |
We didn't get any good shots, but we still had fun!
Since 2014, we've headed to the mountains the day after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree. But Dan and I made a last-minute decision to get a fake one. Dan was heading back to Seattle on Sunday after Thanksgiving,, the drive to the mountains is a long one and takes up much of the day and we had a lot to do.
I've been wanting a fake tree for several years now and as soon as Dan mentioned it, I jumped at the chance. We went the week before when he was home for a few days and got one from Costco. It was prelit with dual-colored lights, was nice and full, and had a small profile. (The room we put it in is small and every year I feel like I'm being suffocated by the tree.) I had suggested we go ahead and put it together before he went to Seattle but we did not.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving after we had dinner, we decided to put the tree together so it would be one less thing to do on Friday. And of course, the lights didn't work. It was 7:0 pm so we quickly disassembled it and hauled ass (pardon my French) to Costco to return it before they closed at 8:30. We knew we didn't want to be anywhere near Costco on Black Friday and we had a lot to do before Dan left to go back to Seattle and returning this tree was not a one-woman job so we needed to get it back. The return was easy but unfortunately, they were out of trees. The floor model was still up and they were going to sell us that one at a discount. But then I noticed that one strand at the bottom of the tree was out. That made me change my mind. Even with a discount, I didn't want to come home with a tree that already had lighting issues. I was beginning to regret our hasty decision to not go to the mountains.
I started searching for trees online in the car on the way home. Of course, I wanted Balsam Hill tree but their trees are so expensive that I couldn't justify it. I searched and searched until I was becoming anxious. You know how you get when we are looking online and you find something that looks nice, has a decent price, meets all your criteria and then you read the comments? And even though most of the comments are glowing you read a couple that aren't, and you decide you have to start the search over? Well, that was me. After searching for a few hours, I finally just threw caution to the wind and ordered one.
Before we decided to ditch the mountain trip in favor of a fake tree, we asked the kids if that was okay with them. They both said it was as long as we still spent the day together on Friday. And that made this mama's heart happy. For them, it wasn't so much about the tree, but the fact that we would spend the whole day Friday together in the car, going to the mountains, eating lunch, decorating the tree, etc. The family time was important to them, not the tree.
So I planned a trip to Olde Mecklenburg Brewing Company in Charlotte. It only took an hour to get there which was perfect. They have a German restaurant there which was also perfect. My people love pretzels and sausages. We had delicious beer, a tasty pretzel, and we all had good food. I think I was the only one that didn't order a sausage. After lunch, we headed to the beer garden grounds (with a tasty brew in hand) and perused the Christmas Market that was set up. There were over 30 vendors there selling their wares. The day was a little windy but it was sunny and not too cold. They had a couple of big fire kettles set up, hot chocolate, music, etc. It was just a great vibe all the way around and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Saturday was chores around the house, Mass together as a family, chicken pot pie soup for dinner, and then more football. It's always great to see NC State beat UNC!
On Sunday, Dan headed out the door to the airport at 6:00am to catch a flight to Seattle. The kids and I ate lunch with Brad and then visited with mom and then they headed back to their respective towns.
The tree came on Sunday so I put it together. It took me forever doing it by myself. The worst part was fluffing it out. That took a long time and I'm still not sure if it's fluffed properly. The tree is "acceptable". It's larger than the Costco tree (which in my opinion isn't a great thing). There are some "holes" and I'm not sure if it's because I didn't put it together properly or if I didn't fluff it properly. But I do like that i don't have to water it. There's no sap leaking from it. There are absolutely zero pine needles on my floor. It's prelit and I can switch between white (my favorite) and colored (Dan's favorite).
I finally got it decorated last night. It needs a few finishing touches, but I think it looks pretty good. No one is home to appreciate it so I made sure to text a picture to the family group chat last night.
I've spent this past week at work and in my spare time in the evenings frantically online shopping. I'm getting things checked off my list but it always takes longer than I think. I've been trying to work on the Christmas card as well but I'm having a hard time with it because the pictures are subpar. Maybe I will go with the rabbit ears photo after all! It really was the best one.
No comments:
Post a Comment