Christmastime is here

Today was Black Friday, the major shopping day everywhere, and I am happy to say that no one set a toe out of this house to get to any stores at 5 a.m. As a matter of fact, the Mitchells did absolutely NO Christmas shopping today, though I do admit stopping briefly in Wal-Mart to buy a birthday gift (socks). Wal-Mart looked like the scene of the aftermath of a significant battle. The cashiers looked shell-shocked and they kept talking about the sound of all those feet in a stampede this morning when the sale items rolled out. They feared for their safety and they worried about small children being trampled. I don't care how much money I might save, I won't shop those sales. I can't be in a store where I can't clearly get to the exit and I don't have at least 5 to 10 feet of personal space all around.

Since we didn't Christmas shop and we didn't put up the tree and we didn't have to go to work, what did we do? Our last houseguests left at 11 a.m. and I was sad to see them go. We had such a good time together! About 2 minutes after their van left the driveway, Dennis went down for a nap and stayed there for 2 hours. I cleaned up what little mess was left in the house, and that took about 15 minutes. Sadly enough, once Dennis woke up, it took me 45 minutes to get us ready to leave the house! We went to the lake to celebrate Monte's birthday with Steve and Julia (Ju-Ju), Mom, Dad, Becky, and Bob. Dennis had such fun playing with the train that Steve and Julia brought for him, spending hours saying "ter-rain" and pushing the buttons that either made it roll forward or make train sounds.

We had a fish fry to celebrate the birthday, which was just what we needed the day after Thanksgiving (HA!). Dennis ate everything on his plate, and we left the table before he did. When we were clearing dishes, we looked over and saw that Dennis had pulled the serving platter of dressing (okay, that was a leftover from yesterday) over to himself and was grabbing and eating handfuls. After this he played train and had us read him books and played dress up in Julia's fleece jacket and my shoes. He partied hard, dancing and laughing, and he even posed for Steve to take a few pictures. He was so exhausted that when it was time to leave, he kept saying "bye bye go". He fell asleep immediately in his carseat, of course. Poor little guy. I wonder how many days it will take him to recover from his big holiday week! We're leaving on a beach vacation in the morning, and I hope he'll get some relaxing in while we're there (because David and I certainly hope to).

We survived Thanksgiving. We even had fun. And now it's officially the Christmas season. The part I'm looking forward to the most? Watching Dennis look at the decorations and listen to the story of Christmas and attend the church services. And our big trip to the west coast, in just over two weeks. Being with family and friends--that's the very best thing about holidays. (and just so I don't leave the nativity report out--today Caspar the Wise Man, not yet renamed by Dennis, has gone missing and we are waiting for the search party to find him)