And Hilarity Ensues....

Our first Thanksgiving feast- and yes, we had a real turkey,
 Jared was not the stand in, as much as he looks it.

So, Rod and I have now had our first Thanksgiving together. I am so proud of how it all came out. I cooked the turkey, and it came out so moist! It was a very interesting process, trying to find the neck, being grossed out by it and throwing that away, and then being unable to find the giblets until I started stuffing the turkey. Rod helped me do alot of the cooking, and we made quite a fine meal. Rod made the best pie though. He made his family's recipe for the chocolate haupia pie, and it is SO delicious!

Then today, we decided to start our own family traditions. Considering it's black Friday, and the first day we can officially celebrate Christmas without too many people getting their panties in a tangle, Rod and I decided we'd kick off the Christmas season officially with some service. I can't stand the Black Friday rush, so we slept peacefully through that--Junior let me sleep all through the night last night, finally!--and then when we crawled out of bed we got ready and went to the mall to go pick a name for sub for Santa. Then we did some shopping for that, dropped off our gifts and went to go get our Christmas tree. This is where life gets hilarious.

So, since we decided to buy the tree at Smith's, we figured it was close enough we could walk home. We bought a stand and a tree. Rod laughed because it was the first tree I saw, he thinks it's funny because I don't shop around once I think I've found what I want. Then Rod carried the tree and walked the three blocks to our house while I carried the stand. (We also bought oatmeal because since becoming pregnant, I've developed a passion for oatmeal.) When we got home, we were faced with a dilemma, because we needed to cut one inch off the bottom of the trunk, but no one we knew in the area had a saw handy. We tried drilling holes in it to get it to come off, but Rod's drill battery died. Then we tried the chisel technique, but figured that would take until next week. So Rod went at it with the curved side of a hammer. Laughing, he said he could never call Jared a redneck again. It took some time, but we did actually hack an inch or so off the bottom of the tree using this method.

Now to bring our tree inside. It wasn't too bad, I just brushed everything off the refrigerator as we walked by and the tree shed all the way in. We set it in our new stand, which we discovered was too big--explains why it was the cheaper of the two!--and tried to steady it there. Now the trunk was too short, which we discovered after trying to steady it three times, unsuccessfully. We steadied it once, wrapped the lights around it; which we discovered were too short for the smallest tree we could find, which was probably still a little too big for our house. We made do, and began to move it into the corner. As the tree fell out of the stand yet again, all we could do is laugh. I crawled under the tree to try to steady it yet again, unsuccessfully. Finally, we decided to chop the lower branches off, so that it could sit down in stand properly. So, using wire cutters and hacking with the hammer again--we tried the exacto knife, but it didn't work--we got the lower branches off. Now there were needles and wood chunks all over the floor. But finally, using the blocks of wood we'd hacked off of it earlier, we could steady the tree in the stand. Decorating it with the ornaments, hanging stockings, placing nativity sets and placing gifts under the tree were short work after that.
Of course, I still have to go through and do the vacuuming. But now we have our house decorated for Christmas! I am so excited for the Christmas season coming!