Post Thanksgiving Burn-out

Happy Post Thanksgiving Burn-out. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and a great turkey feast. Hope you got to see friends and family and remembered to be Thankful. We had a great time visiting with our Grandmas and making memories.

Catelin was off school for the week so the kids and I left on the previous Saturday, drove to Illinois and spent the whole of Thanksgiving week with Grandma Angela. On Wednesday, Mamaw and Papaw drove over from Indiana to spent the holiday with us.

Three Grandparents, two Grandchildren; it's a good thing.
I slept in, finished a good book and even took time to shave my legs. (TMI, sorry, but you just don't understand how significant that really is...)

Now, the drive up to IL was uneventful, just looooong. The weather was good, and no one screamed unnecessarily. Catelin ran the DVD player and Alex was allowed a pacifier. ( I know, I know... but I just don't care...)

We break up the drive with a lunch stop at a McDonalds playland. I always pray against, staph infections, pink-eye germs or random bodily fluids being in the playland.
I wasn't disappointed, Catelin came out to report one little boy was guarding the top of the slide by spitting at everyone. Yeah... there's one in every crowd. At least this time it wasn't mine.

The playland is perfect for Alex to run out all his energy and maybe sleep a little for the second half of the trip. It's a treat for them, for being in the car so long and it's also good-behavior leverage. "If you don't stop fighting/whining/crying/kicking we are NOT going to McDonalds!"
What did parents do before McDonalds?

Coming back to GA was another story. We left an hour and a half behind schedule, it was foggy, it rained, it was dark by 5:00pm, Chattanooga was bumper to bumper traffic for miiilllles and somehow I completely ignored my GPS and got lost briefly in Atlanta. Ack...

So, now it is time to prepare for Christmas. I need to finish my shopping, of course.
Catelin and I always choose a charitable cause to support for Christmas. This year I think we are going to purchase coats for a local 'coat-drive' and maybe even donate supplies to one of the county animal rescue groups. We also need to decide on a tree: real or fake? And see if our decorations made it here in the move or are they in IL? Hmmmm.
I want to spend one afternoon, with Catelin, making cookies.

Geez, I need to start a to-do list.
There are many, many things I need to get started on and get done.
What are you doing to get ready, now that the Holiday season is in full swing?