Sunday before Thanksgiving

How did we get to Thanksgiving week already? As always, once Halloween comes around, the rest of the year just flies on by.

Our house is all decorated for Christmas.... the only thing missing is the big (real) tree for the living room. My husband will get that the day after Thanksgiving, and this year, our young Miss C wants to go with him to pick it out. That should be interesting-- she's already telling him to pick out the biggest tree that they have.

We're having our Open House Christmas party in a couple of weeks, so invitations have already gone out and most of our friends have RSPV'd. As always, we've got some surprises planned for that party, so we're looking forward to that night. And, as always, I've already had my little pre-party meltdown. That's when I look at my party to-do list and ask myself "What were you thinking when you sent out invitations to so many people?" The meltdown doesn't last too long.... just long enough to me to get back to completing my to-do list instead of just reading it.

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a lot of that lately........ book after book after book. My pile of books-to-be-read never seems to disappear because I keep adding new titles to it. My one wish for my life is to live long enough to read everything that I'd like to read. "Love In The Time of Cholera" (an Oprah book club selection) was truly wonderful. There were passages in that book that were beautifully written.... so much so that I wanted to mark the pages so I could get back to them easily. But I just can't do that... unless it's a cookbook, I don't want to be writing in my books.

I'm waiting now for the newest Oprah selection--- "The Pillars of The Earth," by Ken Follett. When I heard the subject matter of the book (the Middle Ages) I was going to pass on this one, but so far, Oprah hasn't been wrong with her book choices, so I went ahead and ordered the book from Amazon (less than half the retail price). With the holidays coming, I probably won't be able to zip through this 900+ page book too quickly. Oprah said she was up till all hours of the morning reading that book. Easy enough for her to do....... she isn't expecting 45 people at her home for a Christmas party. And even if she were, she's got a staff to take care of all the little details.

Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday..... it will be an easy one... just eight of us around the table and everyone is bringing part of the meal. We're doing the turkey, plus the dressing and mashed potatoes. Then comes the Christmas party for 45, then my husband's birthday, then Christmas Dinner, then New Year's Eve. As I said, as soon as Halloween comes, everything else just marches up right behind it. Jingle bells.