Kept Some! Broke Some!

Today...for our family Thanksgiving gathering...we kept some traditions and broke some. We broke with the tradition that I cook everything for this dinner. Because there was just no way that I could do it "all" this year, Nathan and Kathy and Wade and Melany took up the slack and divided up the sides and made them. My only cooking duty was to cook the turkey (we had already bought one) and make the gravy. During lunch I told them that this might become a "new tradition!" We had a very nice family meal. We ate over at Nathan and Kathy's. It was such a pretty day that some of the children ate out on their screened-in-porch. Some of us ate in their kitchen and then three (Woody, Alex, and Isaac) ate over at our house in the family room on TV trays. We had lots of yummy food. After lunch, the kids headed off to play for a while, Kathy cleaned up her kitchen, Melany carved the rest of the turkey, I cleaned up our kitchen and got the turkey broth going for our traditional after Thanksgiving turkey soup. At a point we gathered all the grandchildren together and we got out the Fisher Price Nativity set...that's the top photo...note that the big fellows sort of sat back and just watched...guess they are outgrowing that tradition. But the littler ones still enjoyed setting it up and doing silly things with the animals...like putting the camels on top of the tents or putting a sheep on top of the manger where the angel belongs. Joseph enjoyed looking at the animals. Then a little later several went out to put up Nathan and Kathy's large outdoor nativity scene (bottom photo). All in all we had a great day. I will admit to being VERY tired. Woody seems to have done fairly well with all the activity going on around him. It has been a week now since his surgery...what a blur that week has been! Erin is staying with us to help me with our Christmas decorations...at the moment I don't see how I can get up enough energy to do it even with her help...but perhaps I will feel differently after a good night's sleep?!? I will end with a "Gobble Gobble" that is fast turning into the sounds of "'Tis the season!"