The Holiday Season is officially here! I LOVE the holidays. The colors, the decorations, the shopping!

Our Thanksgiving holiday was small this year, just Allen, Annie, my mom and I. It was actually kind of nice. We did go through all the traditional dishes. Our table presentation included the turkey, of course, along with cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmellows, green beans, homemade rolls, stuffing, pumpkin cheesecake and apple pie. Annie and Mom made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie for the Koski family, friends from church. She recently discovered a lump that turned out to be breast cancer. Unfortunately, the location of the cancer required a mastectomy. We delivered the pies on Thanksgiving afternoon to a full house of her family, so I'm glad that we were able to pitch in!

The morning of Black Friday was an early one for Allen, my mom and I. Up at 5:00 am, our shopping excusion began at 6:00 That's the earliest I have ever begun the day after Thanksgiving shopping and I started to burn out at about noon. I didn't buy much but was very proud of the bargains I found! For those surprised to hear that Allen joined our early morning, here's the explanation: he went to Best Buy and Costco to pick up some of his Christmas presents to ensure he got exactly what he wanted. His early timing rewarded him; he got all he went out after. It will show up wrapped, either under the tree or in his stocking, about a month from now. ;)

I also had a revelation this weekend that I knew would come at some point. As one of 3 girls, we have begun to compete for Mom's time and attention when all home together. Kim Goldman told me years ago that it would "bug my soul" (in her words) when my sisters were around if I only had a short time to spend with my mom. Though this weekend it was only Annie and I, I found myself not wanting her to come along on errands when Mom and I were headed out the door. Katie will not be here for Christmas this year, but will be with her in-laws. Imagine how bad it will be when all 3 of us are home again! Don't get me wrong, though -- I do love my sisters. We did miss seeing Katie but are so excited that she's coming to my house to visit the first weekend in December and we will all be reunited!

All in all, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I look forward to the remainder of the 2006 holiday season!

This Thursday we hosted our first Thanksgiving feast for 18 of our closest friends! Our Bible study meets every Thursday evening and we decided that since we were not going to be together next week, we would get together for a feast this week. I offered to host and was very exicted to do so! Since it was a potluck, I didn't really have to cook and that took away much of the stress of being a hostess. Allen made his family's dressing recipe and I just made cider. Jeremy smoked a delicious turkey and all other couples brought traditional Thanksgiving dishes to share.

We borrowed a long table from the Beards so that, in addition to our table, we could seat all of our guests. Our coffee table and rug found new temporary homes upstairs so that we could fit the extra table.

I wish we had taken pictures of the evening! I doubt our kitchen has ever seen more food! It was great fun to have friends over and to share our home.

Next Thursday's true Thanksgiving we will be at my mom's house in Pleasanton. We had made elaborate plans to visit Kelli & Rob in Maryland and then to have Thanksgiving in Memphis with Allen's family. Then the property taxes came. We were expecting them, but decided in the interest of paying our legal dues, we needed to do the responsible thing and not incur debt on top of that with a mini vacation. Fortunately, Allen's parents may be coming to visit right after Christmas and we are planning a vacation with Kelli and Rob next spring. Hope it all works out because we miss our family and friends living far from us!