Magical togetherness and lots of brother fighting! A Good Old Fashioned Thanksgiving

Charlie has been expressing disappointment that he's never home anymore and doesn't get to do all the fun holiday activities he remembers from "when he was young." I tried to tell him that what goes on when he is at school is a lot of laundry and "please go find something to do while I do all this laundry," but he is convinced that while he is slogging away at school I host a magical Santa's workshop of crafts and baking that I somehow manage to conceal once he arrives home. SO. This year meant Thanksgiving break HOLIDAY-MAGIC-PALOOZA.

Beginning with!



I'm not sure who had more fun doing this project, me or Charlie. Wes and James were into it for a little while, but that Pilgrim matriarch didn't make that apron herself. Charlie made Captain Miles Standich, two Native Americans, and a stable of livestock. My kitchen was aflurry with felt, glue, and cut up diaper boxes. Two thumbs up.

After that we headed to Starbucks for the traditional holiday cake balls, then picked up a pizza and returned home to watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. And then Ryan came home and I retired to the Corner Bakery to do the traditional holiday research paper grading. After several hours I am roughly a third of the way through them.

Thanksgiving morning we did cinnamon rolls and the Macy's parade then played outside together as a family like a Bean's catalog. And then we forced everyone into nice clothes and drove to my parents' for the feast. The kids end of the table:


Wes: You never let me eat jelly with a fork at home. Thanksgiving rulz!

The entire huge, pretty table:



Even Mary had a reserved spot:



My dad made a bean bag game that was a huge hit with Charlie, who tallied up 264 points, 10 and 2 at a time.



We took this (surprisingly nice ) family picture. It was my sister's (awesome) idea to take pictures right after we arrived to avoid the problems we usually have getting the children to cooperate after several hours of undersupervised, juice box-fueled revelry.



Like this. This is exactly what I was talking about.



I don't remember the rest of the break except for a lot of "I have no idea what we're eating for dinner," "Please stop fighting with each other," "Why won't you sleep," and James biting through his lip and possibly breaking his foot within twenty-four hours of each other with a couple of bright spots thrown in, namely the lighting of the Christmas lights in the old town square and the Hanging of the Greens at our church.