Happier Holidays

This was the first Thanksgiving in at least 3 years that I didn’t cook dinner. I am happy to report that everything was absolutely lovely, and I’m hoping to repeat the experience next year- ha ha. Aside from my sister-in-law’s dog eating the bacon topping for my casserole, (it was not on the casserole at the time, and she had more bacon in her fridge) it was pretty stress free. We got to meet the new baby, and see the newly remodeled house, and spend the night at my sister-in-law’s house. It was a lovely visit, and everyone had a nice time.

I spent a blissful weekend enjoying our mild southern weather, and not shopping or stressing about Christmas. I generally wait a bit to put up Christmas decorations, but it rained all day on Sunday, so I got my sons to haul down all the boxes and bags of decorations. I put up decorations for about and hour and a half, and decided that was enough. This did not include a tree, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I put the boxes of things not put up in the corner of the room, and pondered what to do with them. The leftover decorations were pretty- I just didn’t want to put up anything else. The house looks quite nice without them. There is a wreath on every door, and two left over. I honestly can’t remember where I put the two remaining ones last year. There is also a lovely garland. I hung it outside last year, but I don’t want to this year. So I didn’t. There were two light up reindeer I bought for the lawn, but I felt like they didn’t have enough lights on them. I meant to fix them last year, and the year before but I didn’t. I called a friend of mine and she came and got the deer and the wreaths. I gave the rest to a charity shop.

There is apparently a Christmas tree shortage because of the drought in the spring. We always have a live tree, but we decided to leave what trees are available to someone who needs them. This year (like last year) we’re just going to cut one from the woods (or beside the road usually). The whole family has been looking for trees as they drive around town. I have a couple spotted, and I’m sure they have some in mind as well. The locally cut trees don’t seem to last as well as the store-bought kind, so I like to wait until 2 weeks before Christmas to go get one. The kids loved doing it when they were little. They complain about it now, but they complain about everything, because they are teenagers. I think I saw them grinning as they hauled the tree to the truck last year…

I expect to donate a few more Christmas things after we put the tree up this year. I also donated two enormous garbage bags of clothes and shoes from my closet. I am still skinnier than before I walked the Camino, and I’m unable to try on the pants and jeans- they’re ALL too big at the moment, but I cleaned out my shirts and shoes. I love the space! I’m quite curious as to why I haven’t gained any weight back. I’m not really trying to, but I’m not really focused on eating less either. Someone said it might be that I have more muscle now- and muscle burns more calories. Hmm.

I haven’t done much shopping for Christmas. No one seems to know what they want this year- teenagers are particularly hard to shop for. I’m normally done shopping by the 10th of December, but its the 8th already and I can tell that isn’t going to happen this year. I’m less worried about it than I usually am. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Really.