Phew! Another holiday behind us and ... we are one day closer to Christmas! I already have most of my indoor Christmas decorations up (including our 5 foot tall singing Santa :> ). I also have two smaller trees lit and decorated...one is in the kitchen and the other is downstairs in our family room. They are each only about 2 1/2 -3 feet tall. We'll still go and chop down our real tree at the beginning of December. I decided this year that the Christmas season starts November 1st around here....

I love Christmas....I love everything about the season...the baking, the spirit of love and friendship that seems to guide people's behavior, the Christmas Eve service, packing the presents and watching the kids joyfully open them on Christmas morning. It is such a happy time for me personally, and I am so thankful to have another Christmas to celebrate! Two years ago at Christmas, we didn't know how things would work out for me healthwise...today we are blessed with Zoe and I had my 2 year scan on Oct. 31st that proved to be clear....so I feel like Nov. 1 is the beginning of the "season" for us. (Of course, my "Keep Christmas in your heart all year long" sign stays up throughout the year, as does the nativity set that Thomas bought me after I was diagnosed and the little christmas tree that Andrew found for me before I started treatments. I guess Christmas tries to stay around here all year! )

Our Thanksgiving turned out to be truly wonderful. It was a little frosty outside though


My step mom cooked up a storm in the kitchen.


My only contribution to the meal was some cranberry sauce. We had ham, deep fried turkey, cornbread stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie (that was so good I couldn't stop eating it), cornbread with jalapeno peppers, green beans cooked with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions....I know I'm forgetting something. We had such a huge spread and have so many leftovers that we will be eating for days. Everyone has been on their best behavior for the last few days, so I was also able to relax and stop worrying about things so much.

It was really neat that my dad was able to come and deep fat fry the turkey together with the boys. He and Rose basically got off of the plane and bought everything we needed to do the frying before they even got to our house. They set it up in the backyard which....was kind of frosty on Thanksgiving! Aidan and my dad injected the turkey with all kinds of yummy cajun spices:




Aidan was really excited to be able to do this, but declared himself a vegetarian after seeing the raw turkey!

Zoe, of course, demanded to be a part of the action:




Later, Andrew and Aidan helped my dad with the frying.





Then....the feast began







Having the exchange students here has been a lot of fun. It worked out much better than I thought it would. They are 16 and 18 and pretty much are glued to their laptops with the exception of mealtimes and when we watch family movies. They are really nice boys and we have had some interesting talks about politics and healthcare systems in their countries. It's always interesting to hear different points of view. I think Thomas and I both feel like we would do this again.[/quote]