Holiday Season Kicks in Full Gear

With Thanksgiving now over, and the month of November ended (I can't believe it!), I have finally started to get into the holiday spirit. This weekend there was a prediction of snow for the weekend so I decided home would be a great place to be and Saturday morning came and out came the Christmas decorations. While the guys were working at a load-out, I brought storage containers downstairs and started putting my regular household decor aside. I always put away my every-day decor and set totally holiday decorations. Once the pigs were loaded and off to market, the guys came home and we had dinner. Afterwards I kept plugging away with the help of my trusty aide, Reed. Finally, Mike was "inspired" enough to bring up the Christmas tree from the basement (no, we didn't do the real tree route this year -- first time in probably 5 years!). We put the tree together while we were yelling at the Cyclones on television. They didn't fare so well but we got the tree up and it looks really nice.

Now I just have to finish putting away all the empty totes. Hey, Gabby -- here's some pics of the rest of the house.

I did a few things differently this year and left some things unused. In reference to the Jim Shore Nice/Naughty Santa, I can never figure out why the name 'Michael' is on the nice list.

Sunday morning came and we plowed through the snow in the truck to get to mass. It is still an adjustment in getting used to the new Roman Missal and all its changes. We had our annual Advent breakfast with the little kiddos singing and welcoming of the new parishoners and newly baptised. Many of them weren't there for one reason or another, probably mostly due to the weather. There was a good overall crowd as I was the last in line and they were almost out of food.

Once we got home and started browsing through the paper, my phone rang. It was my mom and SURPRISE! She was wondering where her little Christmas fairy was -- she wanted her house to look like Christmas too. I told her that I was planning on coming in after they had lunch. So, the three of us headed in to the folks' where Mike put together the tree and I put up the rest of the decorations and decorated the tree. I must say that I don't know just who "de-decorated" Mom's tree last year, but they did a BAD job. The ornaments were all packed into a box so tightly that I had to throw probably 10 away because they were broken or all of the glitter-decoration was off of them. That just broke my heart! We still have a few lights that we have to figure out on that tree.

Once the decorating was done, I vacuumed where the cleaning lady misses (cushions and under chairs) and we moved a couple pieces of furniture around. While I was decorating, Reed cleaned the ceiling fan in the living room and helped Grandma reach some things way up high in the pantry. All of us had pretty much earned some supper, so we ordered a pizza from Titanium Lunchbox. Just after we devoured that, Mike's pager went off and he headed for a trip to Mason City. So now I'm just sitting around trying to plan my week. I had told both my kids that I would update my blog tonight as they like to stay in touch with home and I knew it had been a long time since I had updated.

Gabby had said that she wanted to see a picture of Grandpa in his beard. I think he looks great but Grandma just hates it! He said he is thinking of keeping it on until Spring and Mom was none too thrilled to hear that! He and Mom had some words earlier today as, oddly enough, there is no snow shovel in the garage. Mom told him he can't be doing that and there was some heated exchange apparently.

I also had to take a pic of Grandma's famous Santa Claus that we put in the window with a spotlight on him. Mom gets a kick out of seeing people drive by slowly to look at him.

Now hopefully the next time I blog, I will have my Christmas shopping done! Wish me luck!