Leftovers last forever in our family. Today we headed to my parents to finish what we had started. But before the feast began, I snapped some of these pictures outside.
My dad has this Blessed Mother statue outside with a tiny vase and rose to honor my grandmother. It was hers before she passed away, and he has continued the tradition since she left us in February. It was still in the 60’s here last week, so that week’s rose was still hanging in there. But this weekend the frost hit, and the water froze. I thought it looked so cool.

A last, lonely leaf.


Then we got to eating and watching the Steeler nail-biter.

[my mom makes the best gravy. seriously.]

[fresh fruit salad with fresh whipped cream]

Just to keep you up to speed, I wanted to share Mr. How Sweet’s meal intake. He came straight from the gym and picked up a container (1.33 lbs, to be exact) of chicken on his way. He devoured said chicken (remember – 1.33 lbs) right before our meal, then filled his plate high twice. See? I don’t exaggerate.


Clearly we had an abundance of pie on Thanksgiving.



Then we went on our merry way to start getting rid of this:



And bringing out more of this:



Even though we saw this gorgeous sunset on the way home, we had no idea of the impending Christmas tree doom that would set in.

Earlier this morning, Mr. How Sweet took the strand of lights off the pre-lit tree. The plan was to just add on another strand that we had. Luckily, we have hundreds since we still have a whole other tree to decorate that is not pre-lit. Well, the lights wouldn’t plug into each other, which is a major disaster since the burnt out strand was in the middle of the tree.


So we decided to take off all the lights.

What.a.mess. This took hours and can only be described as the obscenity rant that Clark Griswald shares when he finds out he got enrolled in the jelly-of-the-month club.


I despise pre-lit trees. I have decided that whoever invented them is brilliant, since it basically means people have to go out and buy a brand new $100+ tree every few years. Or sacrifice their sanity trying to remove the lights. Jerks.



While Mr. How Sweet was flipping out, I decided to unwrap some decorations and bulbs.

One tree is done in golds, greens, and glittery oranges. The other is done in hot pinks and purples, but that will have to wait. I can’t wait to show you that one, obviously.


Hello, Mr. Nutcracker.

As long as Mr. How Sweet behaves, we won’t have to put you to work.


Later this week, I’ll tell you what’s in these fun blue boxes.

As for now, I’m off to start on the tree!

(And maybe drink some egg nog. With rum.)