The next week....

We are coming into one of my favorite weeks of the entire year. It will be very busy, but loads of fun. It starts tonight when I finish up some craft items I am sending to my Mom's for the nieces and my sister for Christmas gifts. I am using brown bags for Christmas bags. Not sure how I will wrap them, but here is what gave me the idea.

Saturday will be a quick trip to the post office then heading to Walmart and Food City to finish grocery shopping for all the delicious food for Thanksgiving. Hubby takes care of getting the turkey and I get the ham. I am not a turkey fan (gasp!) but I do love ham. I usually try to get a Kentucky Legend ham or a Cumberland Gap ham.

Sunday is the next to the last Christmas Cantata practice for our choir. I need to make sure and go because there is still one song that takes a LOT of breathing power to get through and I need to practice it some more. Whew, it's going to be a tough one.

Monday & Tuesday after work will be spent getting the house clean and ready for the family to come over on Thursday.

Wednesday after work I will start the prep work for Hubby since he will be working. I usually bake any of my goodies like cakes, brownies and cookies. I also cook the potatoes, eggs, and noodles to refrigerate over night so he can make potato salad and macaroni salad the next morning. 

By the time Thursday rolls around, my part in the process is done and Hubby kicks me out of "his" kitchen and takes over for the holiday cooking. Which is fine with me because I do not like to cook and he loves to. He is very good at it. I am usually up around 5:30 or 6:00 and at 6:15 I run out to get the newspaper so I can go through the Black Friday Ads. My Thanksgiving day is spent pouring over the ads and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

Around noon, Hubby takes a break from cooking and I get to enter his domain and make the deviled eggs. My only contribution to the meal except for dessert. I usually snatch a few of my no bake cookies and a glass of milk for my lunch since dinner is usually around 4 or 5 o'clock.

Then the fun begins. My family will begin arriving and I get to spend precious time with them. We all pour over the ads then eat ourselves into oblivion. It is so much fun having all under one roof with us. I am very blessed that they all live close enough to come over for the holidays. They are growing up fast. This was three years ago and they have changed so much in such a short time. 

At the end of the day, when the mess is all cleaned up and put away and Hubby crashes in his chair to watch TV, I get on my warm jammies and fix me a piece of graham cracker pie and set at the table and start the serious business of planning my day for Black Friday. I plan out my route, pick out the ads of where I will be going and make a list for each store I plan on visiting. I get good ideas for Christmas when I watch everybody's reactions and listen to their conversations while they have looked at the ads earlier. I finish my list and change purses to whatever one I want to carry. Then I head to bed for a good night sleep (usually around midnight or 12:30) and get back up at 4:00 to be out and about by 5:00 for the Black Friday Madness. I love it.

Friday shopping on the biggest shopping weekend of the year is spend going from store to store and comparing lists through phone calls with my daughter-in-law. We cross shop by seeing if something is at one location or another. We wind up around the same area around lunch and get together for a not lunch while we rest our weary feet and get ready for round two in the afternoon. Last year we ended up at O'Charley's. That was my first time eating there and the food was delicious.

I am usually home by 5:00 and spend the evening sorting my finds and getting them hidden away from prying eyes. I check my list and make sure everything I got is marked off. I rewrite it with whatever was left and get up on Saturday and go shopping again with my daughter. We always go to Turkey Creek in Knoxville. It has so many of our favorite stores.

We always have lunch at Steak and Shake on that Saturday. I get the same thing every time. A burger, fries and a cup of vegetable soup. After a good lunch, we are fortified for another two or three hours. 

Sunday or Monday after that Hubby and I will go pick out our Christmas tree at the same nursery we go to for all our spring flowers. They have gorgeous trees and I love the smell of real trees. The mess and clean up afterwards doesn't bother me as long as I get to have a real tree. I am very old fashioned on my trees. I still use icicles all over them. Mom always did and it was a tradition that I have carried on even though everybody in the family teases me and fusses about them. Hubby and I like them. This was our tree last year. I love big fluffy real trees.

And if you wonder why I love icicles so much, here is a picture of our tree when I was little. This was before my brother Andy was born but you can see Mom loved them too. 

So even though the next week or two is going to be crazy busy, I will be loving every moment of it. From now through the end of the year will be hectic but I don't care. I can sleep in January.