Our Thanksgiving

We had a very quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving this year.  The food was pretty good for it being a pretty vile bird, the drinks were cold and refreshing, and the decorations were festive.  

Unfortunately, Liza's kids were sick so they stayed at home which made for a very quiet day for us with a lot more food than we really needed.  Whitney and Ellie visited with us for a while though which was really nice.  

We usually decorate for Christmas through the long Thanksgiving weekend but, this year, we finished all our Christmas decorating by the day before Thanksgiving Day so it looks like Christmas in our house.  

As many already know, I truly despise Thanksgiving so having the house completely decorated for Christmas helped my mood and attitude significantly since Christmas is my favorite time of year.  Maybe we should do this every year...  Thanksgiving Day as Day 1 of Christmas.  Hey, if some guy in a big goofy hat with symbolic pseudo-power at The Vatican can move Christmas to suit his own desires, then why can't I?  The house would be look far nicer on the long Thanksgiving weekend with Christmas decorations sparking many nice memories while each person gets to open a single gift as a sort of a teaser for Christmas morning.  Hmmm...  that's not a bad idea and it adds some much needed excitement to an otherwise incredibly boring, dreadful, horrible day.  

While Gee cleaned up Thanksgiving dinner dishes, I played a game of Trouble with Ellie.  After Gee finished the dishes, she and Ellie played Trouble for a very short while.  

Ellie shot a photo of Gee using one of my cameras...   

Gee and I split a Guinness Nitro Cold Brew Coffee beer while I was starting on cooking dinner.  I also made about a half gallon of mint-infused sweet iced tea with fresh homemade blackberry syrup added to taste.  I might need to make more of that for the rest of this weekend!

Gee and Ellie playing Trouble...

In the next photo, you can see some model trains on the mantle in the background.  I have power running to these tracks this year so I can actually run the trains back and forth on the mantle.  There is a trolley in front of the New York Central passenger train on a separate track so I can run the trolley by itself back and forth across the whole top of the mantle.  The passenger train is longer so I don't have nearly as much space to go back and forth but it is still nice slowly moving it back and forth about a foot and a half each direction.  The lights come on and the passenger cars are illuminated.  There is also realistic sound and smoke too so there is more than just running back and forth a little bit.  I ran the two trains for a bit for Ellie...

As I mentioned above, none of Ellie's cousins were able to come to Thanksgiving this year because they were sick so it was kind of boring at Gee and Papa's house for Ellie so we allowed Ellie to open one of her Christmas presents.  She has taken an interest in baking so we gifted her a Kid's Baking Set.  She seemed pretty excited by it.  I think she wanted to go home immediately so she could bake something.  We should have expected that and planned that a little better...

I believe the rest of our weekend will be very quiet also.  I have to say that it is really nice to be completely ready for Christmas already...  house decorated already, gifts wrapped and under the tree, no rushing around, and we can rest up for the real holiday event (hopefully my health and my doctor will be on the same page...  plenty of rest, relatively good health, no tests and no appointments).  

Oh...  and the main thing I am exceptionally thankful for is that Thanksgiving is now behind us in the rearview mirror!