I find it mildly amusing that due to the way the dates fall this year, I have been graced with ONE DAY between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The way I see it, Thanksgiving was not officially over until we unpacked our bags from our trip yesterday.  And the Christmas season simply cannot begin (in my view) until December 1st.

So today is it – and I’m soaking it up.

I am pretending not to see the Christmas lights when I drive down my street after dark.  I’m pretending not to notice the Christmas music playing on the radio stations.  Most of all, I am pretending not to know that THIS WEEKEND is our kids’ big Christmas program at church and our Sunday School Christmas Party.

And just don’t get me started on Christmas cards.  I’m not even checking my mailbox today.

Yes, I know the weather is crisp and cool.  I know I already wrote that I started my Christmas shopping.  But today, I’m exhausted.  Today, I just want to recover from a really hectic Thanksgiving holiday.  Today, I don’t want to think about all those decorations up in the attic or the odd looks our neighbors will start to give us when ours is the only dark house on the street.

I just want to state it for the record: WE DO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS!  JUST NOT YET!!!

There.  I feel better.

And since we are still reveling in the wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday, let me post a few pictures of our celebration:

Dining Room Table

Finally hung picture from Papa and Sadie's house in our entryway.

My little cookie turkeys

Gobble, gobble

What?!!  You expected to see PEOPLE in my pictures??!!  Well, that would have required me to stop and actually take some!  Instead, I was busy enjoying the holiday.  The pictures you see were all taken prior to any guests arriving, and while I will confess that Brad took a few after everyone was here, I haven’t gone through and picked out the good ones yet.  So what you see is what you get.

Now here are some I haven’t posted yet (I don’t think) from the marathon day the week before Thanksgiving when all 3 boys had their feast/program on the same day:

Matthew's school program (he was an indian)

Peter's school program - he was a patriotic American

Samuel's feast - he was himself

Oh yeah!  I forgot to post pictures of the turkey I made for Thanksgiving!  Here’s a “before” shot:

The turkey I baked - 24 lbs!!!

And here it is “after”:

My baked turkey may not have looked good, but tasted great!

So there you have it.  I might be able to get a few more pics posted tomorrow – or I may not.  I may be too busy decking the halls and all that good stuff!!!