I must be a big fat Scrooge. It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving and I haven’t even thought about hanging a wreath, sending a greeting card, or baking fifteen dozen different types of cookies.


I’m actually not a Scrooge. I like the holidays, enjoy the parties, love the happiness that people seem to feel this time of year. I have a theory, though. My theory is that there is this biochemical happiness switch that goes off in people the day after Thanksgiving.  They pop open their eyes and shoot out of bed, ready to Deck the Halls! I may be wrong but it seems that some people are so desperate to be happy and joyful that they throw themselves into a spastic fit of excessive shopping, decorating, baking, and glee making. I’m afraid to do that because come December 26th I’d crash and burn and would definitely fall into a major funk.  My humbug-ness is purely preventative medicine.


I drove by a friend’s house twice this weekend. Once on Saturday at about 4pm and once on Sunday at about 2pm. Both times her husband was on a ladder at the front of their house hanging holiday lights. That would never happen at our house, not in a million years, and if I or my hubs did ever get drunk or high enough to actually think we should hang Christmas lights, they would still be hanging in all their glory come next Halloween.


Black Friday? Doesn’t sound appealing to me. And where are all these people getting the money to buy TV’s and computers? Didn’t they get that memo about our country being in an economic depression?


Cyber Monday? NOW you’re talkin’! Without the invention of online shopping, my family would still be getting different variations of the handmade wreaths I used to make back when I first discovered the most fantastic invention for the craft-impaired ever, the hot glue gun.  You can be sure that I’ll be spending some time on Amazon today. I dig free shipping and my husband has a long running wish list. I also love the recommended lists and I always find great ideas for my relatives. Easy Peasy!


One more confession…. I haven’t sent out holiday greeting cards for about three years. Maybe more.


I’m just a plain old holiday cheer buzz kill, aren’t I?

My husband will turn 40 on December 18th.  He is ripe for a mid-life crisis.  This morning he sat down and said, “I think I’d like to teach at a boarding school in New England.”  First, we live in Denver, CO.  Second, WHAT? 

Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire.
Joseph Addison

Happy Thanksgiving.  My family has so much to be thankful for.  We are so blessed, we are loved and healthy.  We have so much to be thankful for.  So, why is it so hard for me to sit down and write an inspiring post about how grateful I am?

This is turning out to be a tough time of year for me. I can’t get the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach to get out of the way. A year ago Friday I received the news that a friend and her whole family (my sons’ classmates) had died from carbon monoxide poisoning, probably on Thanksgiving Day. A whole year ago – I remember sitting on a couch in a condo at Keystone. It was snowing like crazy and we were debating whether to hit the slopes or not. In that moment time seemed to stand still. All of the intense feelings and deep personal thoughts that I still can’t vocalize, seemed to stifle the day.

I’m scheduling this post ahead of our trip to the mountains where we will ski Beaver Creek this year.  I’m looking forward to the sunny Colorado slopes, the cold air and the free feeling as we make our way down the mountain on our snowboards.  The mountains are my escape.  My time to unplug, away from internet, work, and the craziness of every day life.  Escape from reality.  Some reality is hard to escape and so I feel a little bit of trepidation – almost like I just want the day to come and go.  This year has changed so many things for us – our children have faced so many life lessons.  I’m thankful for how we have all grown and loved, I’m thankful for faith, for friendship, and hope.  I am so very thankful that I have my family to love and hold close.

I’m a huge fan of toys that inspire creativity.  All three of my kids have a fairly strong love for Legos and all of them loved building different intricate train track layouts with the Thomas the Tank Engine tracks.  As my boys get older, they are now 9 and 6, they build bigger and more impressive Lego creations but they find the plain old building block sets to be a bit boring and “babyish.  I was really excited to discover the smaller sized WEDGiTs for children ages five and up.  We were given the opportunity to try out the Mini WEDGits building blocks Dog Set.  My four year old daughter was the first to explore with the set and had a lovely time making what she calls “Professor Poopy Pants”.  Why yes, I’m so proud …. and I’m quite certain that the preschool teachers love our family…. but the process she went through to put this together was quite interesting.  She clearly wanted to be sure she used all of the pieces and she had to play around a bit in order to build what she did.  I was definitely impressed.

The boys loved these.  They had fun building a variety of different things.  It was interesting to see how they experimented with the different pieces…

What will you be serving at your Thanksgiving table this year?  Even although we’ll be snowboarding most of the day this year,  my Mom and I will be pre-preparing a few yummy dishes and a warm cocktail made from Sandra Lee recipes.  I’ve included excerpts of the recipes and a special treat at the bottom of this post:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9×13-inch baking pan with cooking spray; set side. 
2. To make the casserole, in a large mixing bowl, mash the drained sweet potatoes with a potato masher. Stir in the eggs. Add the butter, evaporated milk, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and pumpkin pie spice; mix until well combined. Spread into the prepared baking pan. 
3. To make the topping, in a medium bowl, combine the sugar and flour. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until mixture is the size of peas. Stir in the chopped pecans. Sprinkle topping over the casserole. Garnish with pecan halves (optional). Bake for 45 minutes or until the top is browned.

How yummy and perfectly Apres Ski does this sound?