Just for fun, some last minute holiday cheer.

Well another holiday season has come and gone and this one was definitely much different than past holidays, although still very merry. We got off to a good start with the decorating, but we still didn’t manage to get the Christmas wreaths, Nutcrackers and the Nativity scene out of the boxes this year. On a positive note, this means that taking down the decorations will, of course, be much easier this year. We also still had the now annual, Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and a traditional dinner on Christmas Day. The difference this year was that we had a very relaxed Christmas Eve dinner in the kitchen and Christmas dinner was by the fire in the den. Some things didn’t change though as we always cook quite a bit of extra food and leftovers, as usual, were gone in just a few days. Everyone had some nice presents including at least one nice surprise that they weren’t expecting. Overall, even though it was a crazy year and things were definitely different than normal, we all had a very nice holiday.

Thanksgiving weekend was a really long one for all of us, except of course Sam, who managed to take it easy all weekend long – no work, no cooking or cleaning and no homework. That being said, we did finally manage to get around to picking out a tree on Wednesday. Most of these trees were just cut a couple of days earlier up in the mountains and still had snow on them as of Tuesday, so we ended up getting there at the right time. Hopefully we will have the house all decorated by the end of the weekend, but Tuesday seems more likely at this point. 😁

Well just like the rest of the year, this Thanksgiving has been like no other. First off, it was just the 4 of us today as Nana and Gung Gung celebrated their Thanksgiving in Virgina. Secondly, it seemed like it took us 3 hours to make dinner and we were done eating in about 30 minutes or maybe even less. Then, of course, another hour to clean up and we were done with everything before 2pm. We originally had planned on having dinner at 2pm, but the turkey cooked quicker than we calculated and so we had to scramble a little to get all the sides done. On the menu was roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade Mac n Cheese, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberries and green bean casserole. To wet our whistle, we had apple cider mimosas. We do have lots of side dish leftovers, but honestly not much turkey. Whoever said that you should plan on 11/2 -2 pounds per person of turkey if you want leftovers, clearly never met our boys. Never the less, we are thankful for the good meal and a day or two of leftovers.

We’ve had a fairly cool fall so far, so it was kind of unusual for Raphael to drop by… or was it Michelangelo? To be honest, we don’t know which of the Ninja Turtles was in our yard a couple of days ago, but we are sure it was probably headed for higher ground as we have had a little over 4″ of rain the last 2 days. Raphael didn’t seem too worried as he made time for Sam to snap a couple of photos of him before he wandered off.

Well not something you would normally find in your shed… an opossum sleeping in a bag of dirt. Judging by his size he couldn’t have been too old, because we have seen much larger ones wandering around in the past. He seemed nice and snuggled up in the bag, but Dad wasn’t really too keen on leaving him there so Mom dragged the bag out onto the ramp and coaxed him out. As you can see, he wasn’t really very happy about being woken up in the middle of the day either. Alex, Sam and Mom all stood around and watch him walk off while Dad was questioning the logic of standing so close, but in the end he wandered off to hopefully find his family. At least he didn’t go into catatonic shock/play dead because we’re not sure what we would have done with him then. Later, when Dad was pulling the lawnmower out to mow the front yard, he realized that the little critter managed to poop on the lawnmower too – seems he had a busy night.

Later for Family dinner we had Bangers n’ Mash and Fish N’ Chips… seems Dad was watching Sky News in the workshop and thinking about all the pubs that would be closing on Thursday. Mom, of course, opted for oatmeal.

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Considering it was a Saturday night, Halloween, a Full/Blue moon and in this twin year 2020, it was pretty uneventful. Mom cleaned out some closets and filled a couple of trash bags with clothes for donation. Dad worked on the computer and changed some light bulbs on the Freelander, while the boys did the usual, absolutely nothing, unless you consider playing video games and watching YouTube videos something? We did decide to splurge and we ordered out for dinner at Cheddar’s. The boys had hamburgers, Mom a salad and Dad a very uninspired chicken dinner. A quick stop at Farm Fresh grocery store for some candy and everyone is now at home in a very dark house. Realistically we doubt we are going to get any trick or treaters coming through the neighborhood this year, although we did see several of the neighbors with young kids next door. Just a few neighborhood kids will probably/hopefully be the extent of things this year. We do have a wild and crazy night planned as we have The Great British Baking show and Mandalorian for Mom and Dad, while the boys will most likely be in front of their computers playing video games the rest of the night. Since Alex and Mom both have to be at work in the morning at 6am and Dad has a lot of little projects planned the next couple of days, we will probably be in bed early tonight.

Sam completed his last dive yesterday and is now a NAUI Worldwide Advanced and Nitrox certified scuba diver! Sam got in two dives yesterday and they were both only down to 77′ as the weather wasn’t ideal and he picked up a couple more shells for Mom and saw a 3′ mackerel as well. Sam is now able to go on a lot more dives with this new certification and hopefully to be able to see more shipwrecks and that elusive shark he has been wanting to see.

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Sam had another dive on Saturday, so it was another trip to the beach or in this case beaches for Mom and Dad. Sam has had an incredible summer for diving as he didn’t have any cancelled dives for weather this year – almost all the hurricanes went to the Gulf coast instead of up the Atlantic coast. If you include the quarry dives, we think he actually has had 7 total dives this summer with one more scheduled for October 20th. The 20th should be his last dive this year and it will be his Advanced Certification dive where he will be out from 6am until 3pm and going to a depth of at least 100′.

While Sam was diving, Mom and Dad went to Fort Macon State Park – their usual modus operandi. This time though, Dad went to the Fort to take a few photos and Mom went to find some seashells as she apparently doesn’t have enough yet. Unfortunately, tide was too high and there weren’t any seashells to be found… well at least not at this beach. Two beaches later at Pine Knolls beach, Mom was able to find a few so the trip wasn’t a total loss. Luckily for Mom, Sam also picked her up 3 new shells from the bottom of the ocean (about 65′ down). Sam said he would have had a fourth seashell, but it was apparently still inhabited.

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After a long day doing some work from home and then installing a new garbage disposer, Dad decided it would be a great night to watch a movie. Dinner was hamburgers on the grill for Dad and the boys, while Mom had some unusual pesto zucchini with grilled chicken. After dinner we watched the new Enola Holmes movie on Netflix out on the deck. Since it was a little chilly last night, at least by North Carolina standards, we made good use of the fire pit too. Of course not everything went off without a hitch, Dad thought he had all the gear he needed, but in fact he had to make several trips to the basement to find the right cables. So the movie didn’t actually start until around 8:30pm, which is almost our bed time. Then just when everything was almost ready, he spills the nacho cheese all over the deck.