This year my North Carolina family was able to come to our house for a few days over Thanksgiving.   My husband came home from his deer camp for the day.  We had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner  followed by a lot of activities.

The weather was very nice so I took the opportunity to do some outside Christmas decorating on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The boys (age 3 and 6) wanted to help me.  We needed to take down the fall decorations first so that kept them busy for a while.  The 3 year old wanted to get it done quickly, so he decided that he could do it by himself.

 Whoops!!! They were a little heavy.

They rolled the pumpkins down the hill in our side yard and carried  the fodder stocks and dead mums to the woods. 

After this was completed we worked on stringing some lights in the bushes.  The 3 year old said “Gwamma I can do this by myself”. 

I may need to put up some warning signs before anyone tries to walk on my sidewalk! 

The 6 year old strung some lights by himself in the  back of the house and said he made a trap.  I do believe this.

I may have done a little rearranging of the lights after they left. 

They wanted to make the North Pole in the woods.  We found some things in the basement that were perfect. 

I didn’t put the sleigh and reindeer together but they thought it was great just leaning part of it up against a tree.  Thanks to Aunt Melissa and cousin Reganne for the help. 

My beautiful daughters and granddaughters hit the Black Friday Sales.  I stayed home that evening and watched a movie with the boys.

My son-in-law took the boys to their Uncle David’s farm to ride in the side by side through the woods and then on a tractor.   They were full of stories when they came back to my house about the “reindeer heads” on the basement wall and how Uncle David is the strongest man in the world!  I understand that he pulled a dead tree out of the ground making it look like he pulled out a real tree.

Our family was not all able to be together this year but each one had a wonderful time with the people they did spend it with and FaceTime helps to bring everyone together.  Sometimes I actually like modern technology.

Now it is time to start on the Christmas preparations.  I love this time of the year and the precious memories we create with family and friends.