Well, Christmas begins at my house on Thanksgiving weekend when I put up the tree. If I'm not the first one in the neighborhood, then I'm a close second. This year I was first. My brother helped me to get the tree out of the box and assemble it on Thanksgiving Day. He gave me some great pointers. You have to expand the branches to fill out the middle parts of the tree so it doesn't look like a bunch of green shelves. That worked great. Before that, I was filling the shelf parts with ornaments and lights but there were still gaps. This way it looks all full and happy.

It was nice to have someone watching a football game on Thanksgiving too, it brought back some good memories.

Then that first week of December is the women's group at my home. We've been doing this for over 15 years and the tree is always up. If I don't have it decorated, then after dinner, they help me to decorate it. We gather around and have a topic after dinner and we always end up telling our life stories. This is a group that has a nice long history with eachother and so that makes it very interesting and nice when we can connect with eachother once every month in this way. It kicks off the holiday season, especially well, beginning it with good friends and good food.

After my brother left from the weekend, I settled again into my very busy routine at work. I've been so occupied with that, when I get time to myself, it is very sweet and precious. I haven't had a great desire to go out much. Consequently, this holiday has been quiet and gentle so far. I've done a little shopping, not alot of extravagance, just some well-considered gifts that represent sincere thanks.