Holidaze 2014- Thanksgiving and falling behind!

 Holidaze is my term for the complete craziness that starts with Thanksgiving and goes through New Years. i typically take a break with my craft business and spend all of december making cookies, handmade gifts and focusing on family. This year i took a break on blogging as well, and this is my attempt to catch up.

Winter came early this year. We were hit with a pretty good snow storm on November 26th.  

The kids were excited to play in the snow and go sledding.  i went outside just long enough to snap a couple pictures then came back in to warm up.  i'm really not a fan of snow.

Earlier this month we purchased a small woodstove as a supplemental heat source. i had some pretty mixed feeling when we first brought it into the house (i may have even cried a bit), but i was truly glad to have it when the storm hit and our power began flashing on and off. We have plenty of firewood too get us through the winter, thanks to the beautiful oak tree we had to cut in order to build the house. We had so much wood that we shared with several neighbors that were in need of firewood. 

The day before thanksgiving, i was just beginning to prep food for our feast and the power went out. We spent our day outside in the snow, reading Harry Potter and playing board games.  The woodstove was very appreciated, keeping us nice and toasty and heating water for my tea. 

On Thanksgiving day we were still without power.  This was our first Thanksgiving in the new house  (last year we were in the camper) and we had no way to cook our meal. The roads had cleared and most of the snow melted away.  So we ended taking a drive to NC and having a rather non traditional thanksgiving meal at the Golden Corral. :)   When we returned home that evening we found the power was back on. 

We decided to celebrate our traditional feast on Sunday instead of the day after. As always my favorite part of the feast is that it is almost entirely homegrown.   This thanksgiving we had a beautiful garden salad, roasted root veggies, green beans and mashed potatoes. Sweet potatoes with garlic and rosemary, garlicy greens, deviled eggs, apple sauce, canned peaches and a blueberry/blackberry cobbler. i did purchase a Quorn roast as our vegetarian 'turkey' substitute. 

It was a small feast with just the four of us, simple and nice.  We are constantly reminded of our blessings; a warm home, food on the table and a family to share it with.  Although i believe we should thankful every day, and not just on Thanksgiving it is still nice to take a day together to truly reflect on all of our blessings. 

Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture. ~Kak Sri