Halls decked, Christmas movies watched, season underway

Sigh, what a nice long weekend!  It's never boring though.  Always seems every year we have something planned for every day of the long weekend.  Thanksgiving was good.  We got in our workout in the morning, I made the mashed potatoes and stuffing (I used Trader Joe's stuffing this year and it was really good, surprise) and no weirdness or bloodshed with the family which is always a good thing.  ;-)  I mean if Olivier Martinez and Gabriel Aubrey can have a knock down drag out at Halle Berry's on the holiday, what hope does that usually leave the rest of us?  HA!

Friday was a good workout and we decked the halls.

I am SO glad we put up the accessory type stuff on the shelves and walls and such the weekend before.  It was nice to just have the tree to deal with and we might just make that a tradition.  It was just so much less chaotic.  I've had it on every night ever since.  We've knocked out several Christmas movies this weekend. The Santa Clause, Home Alone and of course we had to knock out A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving night since we hadn't had a chance to see it before then.  (affiliate links) It was a nice relaxing day in the scheme of things.

Saturday we grabbed some good deals at Joann's since I have some cookie tins I'll be sending out and they had 60% off in general and then a 25% and 50% off one item coupon online.  I think I saved just over $20 and we had a friendly cashier which makes things a little nicer.  We went home and prepared our spread for some football and I made a pie that could double as a frisbee but we won't talk about that.  That night we decided to get in our grocery shopping so we wouldn't have to get up early Sunday morning and Trader Joe's is crawling with people including the classic "granola" I often refer to.  She's the hippy dippy trippy mom with long bohemian hair, a scraggly cardigan over her t-shirt, a long multi-colored ankle length skirt with striped socks and Keds.  She also has her 2 children who are running into everything and everyone including us with their mini carts and the dad is totally clueless and looks like a barista at a local indie coffee shop.  These people are the reason we like to shop at 8am on Sundays.  I couldn't get out of there fast enough so I could evade a public scuffle trying to wade through looky lou's with no intent on buying but still clog up the aisles.  We made our way around Target and then the big box grocery and got home very glad it was over with.

Sunday the Mr wasn't feeling well so our trip to the antique mall was almost a bust until I fed him and put a heating pad on his neck.  Thankfully he started feeling better and off we went.  This antique mall rarely has anything new but I thought maybe there would be some good holiday vendors there.  There were 2 that were good but the rest didn't offer anything I had to have.  In the end I walked away with a new to me antique scalloped spoon that will likely show up in my pictures in future recipes.  The funny thing is we saw a friend of ours from a local antique shop there and I likened it to seeing your favorite teacher outside of school.  We went to a few more places including this general store we like to go to this time of year.  They have all kinds of stuff that's from other countries or very seasonal and I just love to look through everything.  I'm seriously considering getting a gumdrop tree.  Does anyone remember those?  My grandma had one when I was a kid and I thought I remembered seeing silver ones a few years ago but I'll have to do a little more research for one that isn't outrageously priced.  Then we worked out, the Mr cut my fruits and veggies for the week and we watched Once Upon a Time (anyone else think this season is kinda weak?) and Celebrity Ghost Stories on DVR.  I know, I'm real high brow, no?

What did you guys do this weekend?

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