Thanksgiving Weekend

With what's left of my family either working or going to other relatives' s houses for the holiday, I wasn't counting on doing much. This  has been the case in the last few years or so. This past year, I joined a client at the mental health center where I am a peer mentor. This older guy has no family nearby, and he, another mentor, and I have become good friends over the past year. The two of them came over to my house last month, meeting my mom. I was the only one who came for Thanksgiving, though, as the other girl was already going out of town to see relatives for the holiday, and my mom did not feel up to going.

It felt great helping someone this way. I helped make the stuffing, which included cutting an onion (it stung my eyes!) This was new to me, as whenever my family would have a big Turkey Day dinner, someone else was always doing the cooking. When I lived on my own, I either stayed home or went to a family member's house. I could never have done this on my own. I took some of the turkey home that night. 

On the way home that night, I drove by Target to see the empty parking lot. As I have said, I do not go to stores the days after Thanksgiving, at least not at 3 or 4AM to fight over electronic devices, but I did need to run by the grocery store for a few things, which I did in the early afternoon, after getting lunch at McDonald's. On Saturday afternoon, I visited a local store, almost forgetting it was Small Business Saturday. I did not see anything I wanted to get, though.

For weeks I had been planning to decorate for Christmas, with a gingerbread house theme for the front door and window. Since I had the day off, I decided to begin then. I finished by Saturday afternoon. These are the decorations:

We are planning to have a door-decorating contest for Christmas at work, similar to the one we had for Halloween. I plan on using the gingerbread theme, and another group is planning a Winter Wonderland theme. 

Other than this, I'm not thinking much about Christmas just yet. After the first on Friday, however...