Holidays keep me sane

When life gets too heavy, when the news of violence, intolerance and hatred seem to come at me from every channel and station, I find peace in preparing for the holidays. I spend a lot of time ruminating on these issues, because that journalism blood courses through my veins, and I need to know, most of the time.  But it's nice to focus on something as trivial as dishes and cloth napkins once in a while.

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Each Thanksgiving I try to set a nice table. Table linens, flatware, centerpieces and china make my heart happy. I don't have a lot of any of it, but I try to use what I have and change it up each year to make it new to me. I like using what I have whenever possible, and I'm not a person who buys new stuff every year. I get a lot of pleasure from traditions and using the same items every year. For me, these things conjure up wonderful memories that I get to relive every time I use them.

The table we use for Thanksgiving was given to us. We keep it stored all year, and bring it inside only for that holiday. It's pretty ugly, because it isn't in very good shape. The veneer on top and on the sides is starting to curl, and the leaf for the table is missing, so we use a large piece of plywood in its place. It expands to seat 10 comfortably, and once I get the linens in place, you don't even notice how bad it is. While this table is taking up a lot of space, and it's in bad shape, I can't part with it yet. We've had some good times around that table.

Because we were serving 12, I added our regular round dining table at the end of the big table, so we could all technically still be sitting at the same table.

This year, I started with an ivory tablecloth for each table. We have a lot of these left over from our wedding reception. Buying them was the best idea. These have paid for themselves many times over.

Next, I folded a gold lame cloth into a runner for the round table.

Small table.

View of both tables.

For the large, rectangular table, I placed a rust-colored, thin, wool shawl on top of the ivory table cloth. It has gold and brown embroidered ginkgo leaves along each edge. It covered the top of the table, and on top of the shawl I placed a gold, jute runner.

Unfortunately our candle holders are packed in a box. We thinned out everything this summer to get ready to list the house for sale. I knew it would take way too much time and effort to find them, so I bought new ones. These cost more than I would normally spend for such things, and I bought them at Pier 1, which in my opinion is overpriced, but I didn't find any in the first few stores I searched, and I needed to just get it done.

I mixed silver metal and glass, and whitewashed wood candle sticks, and I used cream-colored tapers. Normally I run out into the back yard the morning of Thanksgiving to get a few fall leaves and place them along the center of the table, but this year I remembered that my hydrangeas were still on the stems, dried, so to speak. I clipped some of them and mixed in some acorns and placed these around the base of the candle sticks.

For the small, round table I used a whitewashed wood pedestal candle holder that matched the candle stick on the larger table, which also had the sliver glass, and silver metal candle sticks.

I don't have more than eight napkins that are the same pattern, so I mix and match those.

We have a set of china from the 1930s, and we use it every year. It is a fairly complete set, and it works well for Thanksgiving. It even has a couple of bowls, a gravy boat, soup bowls and dessert dishes.

Arts and Crafts-era dish holder.

And speaking of serving dishes, I have a silver dish holder that brings me so much joy I just can't even. It's from the Arts and Crafts era, and although I don't have the original dish that sits inside of it, I make do with a shallow, clear glass dish with handles. I found this beautiful girl at a thrift store, and I was so excited to pay the $1 for it.

Turkey, stuffing, yams, a couple of new recipes that I found and tried, and everyone liked, including a recipe for Parker House Rolls, and a mushroom yogurt pie with spinach crust, and pies, of course. Our home was filled with people, and everything that I love about Thanksgiving.

On the moving walkway, heading toward the holidays

It was Halloween Day, and I said to Sean, "Well. This is it. After today we are on the fast track to Christmas."

He didn't quite understand what I was talking about, but it's true. Once we've changed from the costume to the pjs and counted his candy bars there is a switch that gets flipped, and I feel like time moves a lot faster. Days whiz by and I'm in a whirr of Christmas decor in department stores, and non-stop Christmas music. I feel like I'm on one of those moving sidewalks you see at the airport. While I'm trying to take it all in, time is just moving faster than I can keep up.

Thanksgiving is a mere blip on the calendar.

I like my holidays in isolation. I don't want to be celebrating two holidays at once. My m.o. the past couple of years has been a boycott. I refused to participate in any Christmas anything until Thanksgiving had been properly celebrated.

But I'm feeling a shift this year.

Now I feel myself inching toward a place of acceptance. Maybe it's OK to have some pre-Christmas activities while we get ready for Thanksgiving Day.

Some of the cable channels have a countdown to Christmas on weekends. That means there are Christmas movies on already, and I found myself watching a couple of them on Sunday while I had an afternoon alone.

Christmas is so much fun. I've always wanted to prolong it as long as possible. Each year I longed for more time to soak up all the sights and sounds and good cheer. It was always so hard when I was a college student because exams fell in those first weeks of December. By the time I was able to focus on Christmas I only had about two weeks left of it.

I spent years as a single mom, rushing to get kids to school, get myself to work, zipping from one activity and place to the next. At Christmastime it seemed all was a blur.

My life is very different now.

So, maybe I'll try it this year to blend a little bit of Christmas with our Thanksgiving and see if it works for me.

Snowy Thanksgiving

We are supposed to have a cold, snowy, icy winter. So far we've already endured two windstorms and a snowstorm.

This was our neighborhood a couple days before Thanksgiving. Sean didn't go to school all week. Though school was on regular schedule Monday, I called in to say we wouldn't be coming. We already had about an inch of snow on our road and it was getting colder and snowing hard.
So we had a week off from school because Tuesday and Wednesday the roads were icy and school was cancelled, then Thursday and today were holiday break.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. The snow was starting to melt, but the roads were still icy. We drove grandma to Aunt Bennie's and had a good dinner and watched a couple of movies.
One of them was "Toy Story 3." We were laughing through the whole movie. Then we watched "The Last Airbender," and I wasn't so thrilled with it. Sean loves that show, so he thought it would be great. Even he wasn't as impressed as he thought he would be.

Today we went out to search for red wigs. A local theatre is putting on a play based on the book, "Red Ranger Came Calling," by Berkeley Breathed. It is one of my favorite books, and Sean loves it too. We have been reading it during the Christmas season for the past couple of years. So those who have red hair get in to the play for $10. Of course, I don't have to buy a wig :-) Knew someday it would pay to have red hair!
Sean wants to do a temporary dye job on his, and I was looking for wigs for Bennie and Rhian.
There could be more of us going, just have to confirm.

Anyway, we came up empty on the wigs. I started to buy yarn to make a Raggedy Ann type wig, but that shop had a line around the store because of Black Friday deals.
I can get yarn tomorrow, or next week. No big deal.
I love this time of year, so much going on!

So this month is almost over, and this Sunday we will make Advent Wreaths in my Godly Play class. I LOVE Advent Season. Love everything Christmas and everything about it. I don't really enjoy shopping so much anymore, but maybe it's because I don't have a partner in crime here. Before I moved from home Karen and I shopped together a lot.

I turned my radio station to the Christmas music station today. I listen to it in the car throughout the season. I love the decorations in the stores, love the Christmas commercials on TV and the television specials like Charlie Brown and all the shows for kids. We'll be pulling out "It's a Wonderful Life," and "Home Alone," and all the old Christmas movies on our shelves.

In December we have quite a few events. There's the Red Ranger show. I want to go to the Journey to Bethlehem again if possible, and we are also going to see the Puget Sound Revels again this year. Then we'll be on our way to Tennessee and I'll meet my first granddaughter, Parsla. Can't WAIT! Her ETA is Dec. 5.

It's a little strange to think of myself as a grandmother when I have a child who is 8, but I love the way my family has grown. I'd love for it to get even bigger. (Not that I want a baby, but I like adding new people to our tree.)

December will be a whirlwind for work. I'll probably start on the January edition Monday, and that's the day our December edition is delivered. Work is crazy. I need to try to hire some new people, work on some contracts, finalize a budget, and somehow do a little bit of shopping.

I also agreed to help out with a local non-profit. I was asked by the director of Interfaith Youth Camp to help write a grant. I'm getting a crash course in grant writing next week, then we'll see what happens. I'm supposed to try to write it and get it finished before the end of the year. Whoohooo. Lot on my plate. I like being busy, then when I'm finished I like to just crash and do something mindless, like watch "The Housewives of Atlanta."