Thanksgiving, Family, and the Fake Santa

Good morning! I'm able to post this morning thanks to a uniquely Pennsylvanian holiday. It's the first day of deer season and in many of our rural school districts it has become the thing to schedule the day as part of the Thanksgiving holiday break (it's always the Monday after Thanksgiving) since so many will not be in school anyway.

Even work in other areas suffers. Tim had to work yesterday because the crews who are taking off today to hunt wanted to make up the hours. I don't hunt and it's been years since Tim has taken time off to go, but I sure won't complain about an extra day....especially since this year we have to go, like, four whole weeks before we get to the Christmas break.

I hope everyone enjoyed a blessed Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, feasting, and bargains if Black Friday shopping is one of your things. Thanksgiving day was, for us, a quiet day.  Mom and John came down off the ridge to stay at Mom's house right behind us so we could leave our poor old Elvis at home and be close enough to run down and let him and Daisy out. That was very thoughtful of them since Elvis can't navigate the steep steps to get into John's house these days.

Anyway...

It was just them, us, and our daughter, her husband and our youngest grandbaby for dinner.  We ate early at noon and then hung out visiting for a bit before the kids had to leave for another Thanksgiving dinner with Cody's family. I spent the afternoon with Mom and John just chatting and watching TV because Tim was not feeling well again and went home to sleep. The kids were back by 6:00 to drop my little buddy off so I could babysit while they went out to do some Christmas shopping. I had him until 9:00. We watched a Sesame Street Christmas movie about why (at least on Sesame Street) we leave cookies out for Santa. Colton loved the puppets and bright colors.

Friday was all about cleaning the house and decorating. I do not go out for Black Friday shopping. I'd rather poke my eye with a stick. I ordered a few things online in the morning and in the evening I braved Walmart because I needed to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. I was shocked. There were cars in the lot, but there were plenty of spaces up close to the store and there really weren't that many people in the store. All the registers were open and there were no lines to checkout. On Black Friday. I'm guessing Thanksgiving night has become the new Black Friday?

Saturday was a great day. One of the best family days we've ever had since the kids have grown up. We started in the morning by picking up our daughter and her family and driving to the Christmas Market over in the town where I work. We found all kinds of goodies...fudge, pickles, a painted plate for Santa's cookies, wine, some amazing all natural soaps, and I got the cutest sign (dangler? hanging?) made by my former boss and her husband who have a sign company. I have to find the perfect spot for it. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's actually highly polished steel with a swirly pattern.

We got home just before our son and his family arrived. I pulled out the fixings for sandwiches and chips and we all had a light lunch and visited and caught up. None of us get to see our son's family very much. They are only an hour away, but with everyone working, in school, or whatever, it's hard to get together when you can't just pop over after dinner or on the way home from work. Eventually Megan and I decorated the tree while Ashlei kept an eye on Colton and the guys went outside to take care of those decorations.

The results...

Still going with my woodland theme tree.

It's really hard to tell since I took this in the dark,
but I used the arch Tim made out of old doors
for Megan's wedding and added sparkly snowflakes
on the doors and hung a rustic wood and galvanized
star up on top where they had the "Love you to the
Moon and back" sign for the wedding.

Nothing fancy, but I love how bright the colors of the LED lights are.

We went to a favorite local Italian restaurant at 4:00. Mom and John met us there and we had a great time talking and the food, as always, was yummy! Aeden entertained us with a magic trick. He is too funny and borders on being Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory) smart. He did the trick but then showed how it was done because it's not "real" magic. Colton cemented his love of Sora.

From there it was on to Overly's Country Christmas at the county fairgrounds. It's a big light display, that really isn't the greatest, but it's all for area charities. One man began it years and years ago at his house. You used to wait in traffic lines for hours to drive by and toss a few coins in the donation bucket. Now it's $20 a carload to drive through the lights (just a circle around the main section of the fairgrounds), $6 per person for a sleigh ride (only Colton was free and the kids weren't even less), and I have no idea how much the train ride the kids took cost, but I'm sure it was ridiculous given that it was only two times around the small oval set-up and it was the fastest kiddie train I've ever seen. Everyone in the crowd was commenting on it being the "bullet train."

Aeden wanted to "put his face in the hole" so Pappy
had to do it, too, but he's trying really hard not
to be seen doing it.  LOL

Right before the ride started. They were freezing, but excited.

After you drive through the lights, you can park and go into the center of the fairgrounds where there is a model train display, a nativity with some live sheep and a donkey, a huge bonfire, a gift shop (of course), sleigh and wagon rides, food vendors, and you can visit Santa.

Poor Aeden wanted to talk to Santa (I'm not sure what happened because Ashlei and Matt used to refuse to have their kids believe in Santa, but on this visit Aeden sure believed), but the line was so stinking long that Matt told him no. Playing to that genius brain of his, I told him it wasn't the real Santa, anyway, that it was just a helper Santa. Matt added to that telling him they'd go see Santa at the mall near their house because he knew for a fact that he was the real one. He told Aeden that it was one Christopher Claus and he had seen his ID so he was sure it was him. That satisfied Aeden and his good mood returned. Of course, it didn't hurt that Aunt Megan and Uncle Cody bought he and Sora the coolest light swords ever!

Matt's family headed home from there and we brought the others back to our house to get their truck. Everyone had a wonderful time. Well....I'm guessing about our little guy. It was so cold he was all bundled up and couldn't really do anything, but his little eyes were sure wide open taking it all in.

Yesterday was my do-nothing day. I napped, I read, I ate, I wrote, I played around on the laptop. That was it. Okay, I made dinner and fed my husband when he got home from work, but that was it.

Today is all about laundry, but still pretty relaxed, though I do have to take the Poodle to be groomed this afternoon. Man, does she need it.

So, that was our holiday and tomorrow it's back to work. How was your holiday?