I have a secret to tell.

I love the holiday season. Really I do. All of it.  We are not religious people, in fact 3 out of the 5 of us lean towards being atheist. But we love the spirit that comes with the all upcoming celebrations including Christmas, which is of course the holiday we associate most with.

Look. I get it. Some people feel very strongly about Christmas being premature. It does seem like the stores start putting stuff out earlier and earlier every year (I am looking at you, Hobby Lobby in June). I try to respect your wishes and not start blasting holiday music from the roof top on November 1st. It is officially the week of Thanksgiving though and I am done waiting.

Up She Goes

Yesterday, we decorated our tree. The kids colored their advent bags. We drank hot chocolate and mulled wine while we ate fancy cheese and listened to Holiday Favorites on Alexa. I packed up all of our Fall decor and lit candles that smell like sugar cookies.

And it was a really nice day.

I Am Not Trading In On Thanksgiving

None of this means I am skipping Thanksgiving. In fact, even though we are not even in the States anymore, we are still celebrating this weekend with some fellow expats. We will have turkey, mashed potatoes, and some extremely hard to find pumpkin pie. I am not trying to push one holiday out for another, I pinky promise.

In fact, usually I decorate the day after Thanksgiving but the lines here are blurry. The holiday season here is huge and we want to take in as much as possible. November/December is easily our favorite time of year, there is so much to celebrate. As the unofficial Activity Director of this family, I have so much to do. If I can get some of my list done and find some joy in the process, I make no apologies to getting a head start.

Fair Warning

So I am going to talk about the holidays. And my feed is going to start filling up with decorations, and baking, and Christmas Markets. If you want to know about our life here, you will have to understand that it is is part of the package. I do promise to talk about other stuff as well, if that makes it any less painful. Regular life will go on and we all know Red won’t shape up just because there is promise of gifts.

Also while we are on the subject, temperatures have dropped and it is bound to snow sooner than later. So there are going to be a weird amount of pictures of my southern babes experiencing winter. Just putting that out there. Sorry not sorry.