Thanksgiving & Christmas Clutter Countdown Week 15

The big event this week was our Thanksgiving celebration. Robbie and I did all our cooking on Wednesday, so our contributions to the Thanksgiving meal were ready to take to Mama & Daddy's first thing Thursday morning. I made four items: Grandma's pecan pie, praline sweet potatoes, dirt pudding, and orange jello salad. Robbie cooked the fresh green beans we picked up at the farmer's market.

Thanksgiving Day itself was filled with family,

food,

fun,

and games!

CHRISTMAS WEEK 15
We put out all our Christmas decorations Friday and Saturday. We have three Christmas trees (plus a couple of miniature ones) that we put out and decorate. Robbie helped me and we had so much fun getting everything out and set up. We played Christmas music all day both days, working our way through our collection of Christmas CDs. (I'll be sharing photos of the trees and some of my favorite decorations throughout the month!) For today, here's the Christmas village scene that's out on the china cabinet.

Some of  you may have recognized immediately that Robbie set up this great village. For those of you who didn't catch that fact, here are a few close-ups. First, notice Spiderman climbing out of the window near the church steeple.

And second, don't miss Superman hanging out on the street and General Custer freshly returned from the war standing in front of the house.

We also started watching our Christmas movies this week. We began with The Walton's Homecoming, which was the pilot for the TV series The Waltons. It's a great story based in a simpler, less materialistic time. Each child is hoping for one thing for Christmas, while everyone's main wish is that Daddy Walton will arrive home safely on Christmas Eve. While we were taking a break from decorating on Friday, we watched Jingle All the Way, which we really enjoy because it has such hilarious scenes in it.

I did do a little Christmas shopping early in the week with my Mama. I picked up a few items for Robbie and something extra for my nieces and great-nephew. I also ordered a few gifts for Robbie online.

DECLUTTERING WEEK 15
This week's focus was the dining room. I concentrated on our entire front room which has a sitting area with two comfy chairs and lots of bookshelves as well as our long dining room table, china cabinet and sideboard. This room really did not need much, a little cleaning and then some rearranging of furniture for one of the Christmas trees. We used the big table as a staging area for the decorations, and we are both glad that it is all cleaned off now so we can start putting together a Christmas puzzle on one end and then have a game of dominoes on the other. (If only I could start winning - it really shouldn't be that hard for me to get to 500 points first, right?!)

The only decluttering occurred while we were putting out Christmas decorations. We had four candle decorations that we never use and neither of us really liked, so they went into the donation bag.

Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying preparations for Christmas!