Last day of the long weekend

We had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house. Her boyfriend came, along with his daughter and her husband. They were nice and easy to talk to, along with my funny uncle and his even funnier friend he brought along, we all had a good time.  Friday I made a turkey dinner, mostly so we would be able to have leftovers for turkey sandwiches all week.

While the turkey was cooking, I got out the Christmas decorations and got about half of it up before DD got home from work. Since she was the first host to start at 6am, she got off first and was home by noon....which gave us just enough time to get over to Kohl's and use the $10 coupon I had that was good until 1pm. She used it on 2 picture frames she got for her dad for Christmas. After $10 coupon and another 15% off, she only had to pay $2, as the frames were already 60% off. We had to stand in this ridiculously long line that ran to almost the back of the store, but it moved along fairly quickly and half hour later we were out of there. She felt it was worth the 1/2 hour wait to only pay $2 for 2 gifts.  Then we went over to Target to see if they had any of the Bissell Little Green cleaners for $50. Of course they didn't, but the store was not busy at all, no lines by then.

We went back home and finished up the inside decorations (except the tree). She had to work again yesterday morning and we went and got the grocery shopping done after she got home. I didn't really need much, since I had kind of doubled up on shopping last week, to spend $150 and get the free turkey. I only spent $60 on food, plus $22 on dog food and also purchased 2 poinsettia's for $5 each. They look really nice sitting on the floor on each side of the black piano and piano bench, along with all the other decorations on top of the piano. I inherited this piano and while none of us play, I just love the look of it and it's small size

This is my new addition to decorating the house for Christmas. I haven't added much in a very long time and wanted to do something with this ledge. All year I have greenery and knickknacks on it and have never changed it for Christmas. I bought these items pretty cheap at Ross and today will add some garland I got at JoAnn's to cover up the stenciled area. It's not the greatest picture due to the angle but I like how the decorations turned out

                                                                                 

Last night at 5:30 DH went outside for a few minutes and realized it was pretty warm out and decided to get the lights put up outside, so DD and I helped....yes, in the dark!....but with the flood lights on the outside of the garage it wasn't too bad. We got it all done in an hour and a half. We had the garage door opened and the garage stereo tuned to Christmas music and the dogs played outside while we put them up. It was really nice........except for the renter neighbors burning their garbage...again. Our other neighbor between us and them noticed last week they were burning garbage at night and he said if he caught them doing it again he was calling the fire dept. We got outside last night to start our lights and could see the fire going. It then got put right out (probably because they realized we were outside and could see it) where we could see it....they obviously moved it back into their property because the whole time we were outside we could smell the toxic nasty smell of the burning garbage. They do not have weekly garbage service and when I was going to work last week I noticed about 10 bags of garbage piled on a little car trailer they have (ya, cuz that doesn't attract rats and racoons, etc)

So, after having to have our noses and throats irritated from the smell while we were having our nice lighting evening, I went in and called the fire dept. They came right out and were down there awhile and then stopped and talked to DH, who was fiddling with some lights along our fence. They told DH that the guy lied and said he didn't have any fire going at all. They told him they could see where he had ashes, so then he lied and said he was just burning cardboard. The firemen told him they could still smell it and it was garbage being burned. They couldn't fine him because they didn't catch the fire going, but consider this a warning and even if he was "just" burning cardboard, no fires are allowed right now due to air quality. The firemen advised us to call the health dept...they'd deal with the garbage piling up, which then should take care of the burning issue. They said the county has just hired 10 more people to deal with this issue of burning garbage, so that is good.  Plus, then junyard/slumlord property owner had to go down to the renters place and deal with it - haha!

Today we are putting the tree up and doing a little shopping - just weekly stuff we need at Target, along with some good coupon deals that start today. I am still managing to keep it a secret that DS is coming home in 2 weeks, but it hasn't been easy - believe me! Especially after we went shopping the other afternoon for a couple of hours and when we got home DH said he had been wishing we were going to the airport to pick up DS!...soon...soon..:-)