Each year, for the past 29 years that we have been married, my husband takes up residency in his hunting cabin about 45 minutes away. He use to stay for 6 weeks but now it is only a total of 4 weeks. This escape from civilization begins the week prior to buck gun season. He is a dedicated hunter. He does come home for Thanksgiving dinner and then once a week to re-stock on food and wash his clothes.
The hunting season becomes my time to create the holiday home for our family. I make lots and lots of lists to begin with. I am a micro manager of myself with lists.
I decorate the house, upstairs and down, as well as outside. This year I had some assistance from 2 grandsons with stringing lights in the bushes and creating their North Pole in the woods.
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.