Here Comes the Holiday Season

It kind of snuck up on me this year, but the holidays are officially here. It's hard to believe we are now heading into the last month of the year; and this decade, for that matter. I remember back when I was in grade school, the period of time between October 1 and Thanksgiving Day moved so slowly. It seemed like it took forever before Thanksgiving Break came. Now as an adult, there's no such thing as a Thanksgiving Break, unless you take a week of vacation during that period of time. I was granted Thanksgiving Day off, which was really nice. It kind of broke up my seven day stretch of day shift pretty nicely. But nowadays, time really moves by a lot faster than when you're a kid. Maybe we just didn't care back then, but there's so much more to keep track of now. And it's not really much of a surprise to hear from relatives and my parents that as the years go by, the time goes by that much faster.

For this Thanksgiving, my family had the pleasure of my sister from Wisconsin joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. It had been awhile since she was able to join us for the holiday; over ten years at least. I always enjoy spending time with her, even if it's just for the day. As I mentioned, I had Thanksgiving day off, so after work the day before, I packed up a few things from my house and headed for my parents. My sister was already there, so I got to visit with her that evening. Our family tradition whenever she comes up or when we visit her is to play Scrabble. The game usually involves myself, my mom, and my sister. I've been in a slump lately, and it continued on Thanksgiving Eve as I ended up in last place. I don't know what's going on - but during this particular game, I got stuck with an endless amount of vowels. There's not a lot you can do in Scrabble when six of your seven letters are vowels. Nevertheless, it was still a fun time and whatever the outcome, it's always a blast to play a game like that with your family.

Thanksgiving Day brought my other sister and her family over to my parents. I always have such an enjoyable time seeing my niece and nephew whenever possible. My nephew is always so busy that it's often very difficult to keep up with him! But I don't get to see him too often, so our visits together are always a lot of fun. My niece is a very funny girl. She says a lot of things that often make us chuckle. She's a bit more shy than my nephew is, so it often takes her awhile to warm up to everyone, particularly me. But before long, she's coloring, playing with her dolls, or watching Spongebob. Neither one of the kids usually eats very much and Thanksgiving dinner was no different. But it was really nice to have all of us together, once again, for Thanksgiving. The last time we were together like that probably was when we had dinner at my grandma's. So it ended up being a very fun day.

Now with Thanksgiving out of the way, on comes Christmas. One of my least favorite things about the holiday season is doing the shopping! I'd rather find what I need for everyone on my list right away than spend hours and hours looking for the right gift. And what complicates things even more; my mom's birthday is just nine days before Christmas. I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet, but there's plenty of time. I usually procrastinate quite a bit until about a week or two before Christmas. I think this year, I am going to try shopping a little bit early. It's better to get it all done with plenty of time to enjoy the holidays than rushing around at the last minute. Hopefully it goes exactly as planned this year.