Change of the Holiday Moods

Yesterday was just about the last day of the Thanksgiving state-of-mind… by now, most of the turkey casseroles have been eaten and all the fall-look decorations have been replaced by Christmas decorations. The turkeys have been replaced by snowmen.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving Thursday has for the past several years what I call Thanksgiving 2 Day. Anna’s niece and her husband, a preacher, have a little group over of her side of the family. Until this year we have been going to their home in nearby Acworth. This year, he has a new church and they moved to Lawrenceville, which is about 50 miles away.

We drove through the town of Lawrenceville slowly because we were looking for certain landmarks we had on our directions where to turn that the niece had supplied to us – for instance we were to turn right the first street past the post office.

As we were driving slowly through Lawrenceville looking around for landmarks I saw the courthouse. I wished I could have stopped and taken a picture of the big magnificent structure. It reminded me of the courthouse Cobb County used to have before it was replaced by a block – but most of all, because it is where Larry Flint was shot by an assassin wannabe years ago…. But the mood of the traffic was “keep it moving”.

I should mention that the niece’s directions was perfect. They were not from Mapquest or any other routing organization. She would give landmarks, along with miles in tenths. We only got lost only once and it wasn’t her mistake but ours.

The niece is a very efficient exact person. She is very proper and very neat. I don’t think she has an ounce of fat on her. She always wears a lengthy dress (nothing near the knees) and during these Thanksgivings-2 get-togethers she wears a perfect apron with ruffles with no cooking stains. If it was me wearing that apron and cooking a glistering stain would be from my lower lip, dripping off my chin and down the apron.

In her invitation she said this year instead of having a turkey again, so soon after a turkey, she was having soups and cornbread. And she assigned different things for each guest to bring. Anna was assigned brownies.

Excellent idea!

While we were on a long stretch of road outside of Lawrenceville I kept thinking the niece remind me of somebody…. Who?

Anna wondered if the niece would have something, I forgot what and I replied just as I thought who she reminded me of: “I’m sure the Stedford Wife will – all details will be taken care of.”

The meal was great. She had a beef vegetable soup and a vegetable soup which was mostly broccoli and was nice and spicy. There were two types of cornbread, regular Southern cornbread, and Mexican cornbread laced with peppers. I chose the Mexican cornbread.

While we were eating the niece spoke directly to me, tell me that she had a cut of coffee brewing. She remembered I thrive on caffeine.

Later, she brought me a cup of coffee, black as I prefer it, of course – the Stepford Wife had that on her memory disk.

Her husband, the preacher, has a very down-to-earth informal way about him. He is very likable and is crazy about his two grandchildren that he doesn’t get to see often enough since they moved to Lawrenceville.

Afterwards, we had to go to Sears and buy a new glass stovetop. We cracked our present one on Thanksgiving day by either working it too hard or before hand stacking pottery-type dishes on it.

Sears lured us there with a sale. They had what we thought was exactly what we needed, just like what we thought we had now. While there with the hook in our jaws and salesman reeling us in he said there is a ½ inch difference in the one on sale and what we had already… in other words, the stovetop would fall through the hole that the present one fitted in…. HOWEVER! His computer did show one with the exact dimensions that we need for a about a couple of hundred bucks more – then, add installation fee and so on.

Yesterday we finished up with our Christmas decorations. And to top things off Willow ate a few candy-canes off the tree and one miniature reef.

Thanksgiving-fall- festive has passed and Christmas time is here.