I am not a fan of eighty degree temperatures unless I’m going swimming.  I am most definitely NOT a fan of eighty degree temperatures in November! I don’t like wearing shorts on Thanksgiving but I have at some point in the day, more times than not, in the years we’ve lived in Oklahoma.

Even my plants are confused. My rose bush has a couple of flowers and my Vincas, which I absolutely love for their heat and drought tolerance, are still blooming, even amongst the weeds.

It is natural for the mums to be blooming though. I have some white ones, which sometimes turn a little bit purple, and some brown ones, which sometimes turn a bit of a dull yellow in the center of each flower.

Mike’s been waiting to paint the house until the temperatures cooled off a bit and wasn’t raining, which isn’t always an easy combination here in Northeastern Oklahoma. But thankfully he’s gotten most of it painted and even sampled the “Sundried Tomato” color on the trim. I’m loving it. Unfortunately, the sun was starting to go down when he was finishing up yesterday and so the lighting isn’t that good in this picture, but it will give you an idea.

Last Friday’s Holiday Blast was a lot of fun. I made sure we got the camera to the church and then asked Tiffany to take some pictures. Thankfully she did. They don’t do the decorations justice but you’ll get an idea of what it was like. We had about 110 in attendance – Great Turn-Out! We started with dinner and fellowship.

We didn’t get a picture of the food. We made nearly sixty pounds of turkey (three large turkeys) and about twenty pounds of ham (two large hams), green beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy. At the last minute we had another offer to bring rolls and butter, so that was added to our feast as well.

Tiffany, Gwin, and I made all the food. It was fun! We had a few hiccups, like when the mixer just wouldn’t mash those potatoes, but we got it all done.

I was up and down all evening. We had door prizes, played some games, and had some singing.

I had the kids come up and share what they were thankful for during our Thanksgiving portion of the evening.

Sean sang.

Mary sang “Mary Did You Know” during our Christmas section.

During our Christmas section, we had dessert (apple, pumpkin, or pecan pies), played holiday bingo and winners got prizes. I should have stopped the game sooner because I ran out of prizes but they seemed ot have fun with it. I then had the children come up and sing a Christmas carol. I tried to get them to sing Away in a Manger or Silent Night but only one child knew those. 😯  So, I settled on Jingle Bells.

Next we celebrated New Year’s Eve. At my parents’ home, we play games on New Year’s Eve (and eat food). Two of the games we play are Taboo and Win, Lose, or Draw so I took the cards and put some in envelopes on each table so that everyone could play a little. When we play, we don’t use the boards that come with the game because there are about a dozen of us. We just use the cards and all holler out possible answers to the word or phrase on the cards. With Taboo, you can speak but cannot use the five words listed in your description of the word at the top of the card. For Win, Lose, or Draw, I let each person decide if they wanted to act it out like charades, or draw it on paper provided on the tables.

I sang “His Name Will Live Forever” and then we poured the sparkling grape juice in the plastic champagne glasses and everyone got out their horns, as we played a video of the Times Square ball dropping and counted down the last ten seconds. We then all blew our horns, said “Cheers,” and drank our juice.

It was a fun evening. My feet were back to normal size by Sunday morning, so not too bad at all. I had some great help decorating and getting the tables set up. We used the place settings as part of the table “decoration” thus less was needed. We had the papers and pens needed to play the games, on the tables as well. We also had the horns and some candy on them. I did have to tell the children not to blow the horns, early in the evening though. And finally, Kim and Sharon put the decorations on them. There were ornaments on the green tables and pumpkins on the orange ones. They did a good job sprucing things up.

We’d celebrated the holidays together and then everyone pitched in to help us get the sanctuary back in order. It was a tremendous help having everyone join in the clean-up efforts. Several ladies helped out in the kitchen, getting it whipped back into shape as well and we gave away what little leftovers were there.

Well, I’ve rambled a bit long today, so I’ll go for now. Have a great weekend. It’s hard to believe Thanksgiving is next week!

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

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