Time for Christmas - AGAIN!!

Well, I had big plans to share all the fun things I did for Halloween with you...parties, recipes, costumes, etc....Then Thanksgiving happened and it was fabulous - Fried turkeys for three days and there is nothing better! And now I am in Christmas Crazy Mode. I don't leave the house unless there is something I can't live without as in it is necessary for decorating purposes. You should have bought stock in Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Too late now. We were home for Thanksgiving this year and it really threw me off my game. I will call it Christmas Denial. Usually, we fly back to Georgia and South Carolina for Thanksgiving and I try to decorate the inside of my house before we go. Works like this...take down all the Halloween crap and clean then put up all the inside Christmas crap. Invite no one in and no one will know you have Christmas up mid November. We will have a lovely normal Thanksgiving in South Carolina - come home and enjoy having the house ready for Christmas. Works for me. This year since we stayed home it went more like this. Halloween - awesome!!! I live for Halloween. The decorations, candy, costumes, candy, vampire movies, books, shows, candy and big adult costume party blowout...100% totally in to it. November 1, it all comes down. This is when I normally start putting up Christmas - kinda relaxed and slowly...I am calm and really enjoying Thanksgiving at Cindy's and just hanging with all my Atlanta friends & Family...I've got 90% of Christmas done. Lots of time for baking and shopping and wrapping when I get home.

Back to THIS YEAR. Halloween rocks! Blah, blah, blah, lots of candy, zombies and scaring cute little kids in amazing costumes. Not only were they the cutest ever they were also the nicest most polite children and teenagers ever. We take great pride in having the scary house in our neighborhood. I really get into it and so does the hubs. We have the scary music rocking the street and the car with dead people all in and around it. I let the kids get close enough to look in then I hit the car alarm and they LOVE IT!! Gets them every time. Due to a malfunction this year the music almost didn't happen. Great neighbors loaned us their boom box and then we realizied it was a blown fuse problem. Anyhoo - got the scary tunes going and passed out all the candy.

Next, day all zombies returned to storage and it was time to think about Christmas. Except we were staying home for Thanksgiving. I think we've stayed in Texas for maybe two Thanksgivings now. Very weird. We have always gone to South Carolina. Always. Bye Bye Halloween and hello Turkeys!! I turned those jack-o-lanterns around and brought out my meager little Thanksgiving collection of pilgrims and Indians and started working on my Thanksgiving Feast Menu. Borrowed a friends turkey fryer and OMG! Talk about the best Turkey ever!! If you have not had fried turkey you are missing out. Super easy. First - ELECTRIC turkey fryer is your FRIEND. You must buy one. Key word - ELECTRIC!! As in won't burn your house down. No scary propane tanks. That just freaks me out. Not to mention who wants to sit outside babysitting the frying turkey - not me. I plugged that baby up in my dining room - we hardly ever eat in there so it was nice to use it for a change. Gave the oil an hour to heat up, injected my thawed turkey with garlic butter sauce, rubbed the outside with a Cajun dry rub and fried that baby for 48 minutes. Since this was my first time frying a turkey (myself) I got a 12 lb. turkey. Plenty for just the four of us. NOT!! We almost picked the bones clean standing up in the kitchen while John tried to carve it. It was amazing!! The skin alone was my favorite. Along with the sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, creamed corn, stuffing and cranberry relish followed by pecan pie with Blue Bell Pralines n'Cream ice cream and punkin pie (my kids love punkin pie)- no one went hungry. Since we barely had enough leftover to make leftover sandwiches (our fav thing about Thanksgiving) I ran an got another turkey breast to fry and one to fry and take to our tail gate party for the A&M vs. UT football game on the actual day. We did family dinner on Sunday before. That is why I fried three times. One big turkey and two breasts. The whole thing makes a pretty presentation but honestly, we only eat the white meat so in the future I'll just fry the breasts. So here I am all fat and happy on turkey skin. As for Christmas - I was way behind and starting to freak just a little. Especially when we got back from A & M game - nevermind who won - on Friday and instead of shopping and helping the economy like everyone else I was looking at a house full of not Christmas. Total denial. More like panic.

So here I am - day four of Christmas Crazy mode....about 75% done. I am thankful to be celebrating another one with all my friends and family. That is the important part. Not the food, decorations, presents or parties. It's the people. And as I get all caught up in the whirlwind of it all I just needed a little moment to stop and think about the people that make it all worth it. Thank you! And Happy Holidays :)