Thanksgiving Week

When we were homeschooling, we took a week's vacation over Thanksgiving.

By this point in the year, I was ready for a serious break. We all were. My kids were getting irritable and had a number of complaints against the teacher and life in general. I was feeling, more often than not, that I didn't care if they were miserable. I had started sighing a lot, which is always a bad sign.

So we took a week off, as soon as I could wrap up the lessons and close the shutters on the school room.

During that week, I prepared for Thanksgiving, but I also did a few other things. I took a day just for me -- a day when I played and slept and dreamed and used disposable dishes. (Hint: the Friday after Thanksgiving is ideal because there are leftovers!) On all the other days, I worked on everything but school. I cleaned the house for the holidays and made the kids help me. I stocked up on baking supplies -- we all loved doing that. I checked and filled in our holiday calendar. I pulled the decorations out of the attic. I put up the Advent calendar. Over the weekend, we put up our artificial trees. Often, we had time to finish all our decorating for the season. And of course, I pulled out the Christmas music and played it at full volume while we worked.

Notice what I did not do. I did not shop! No Black Friday for me! I avoided the crowds, the traffic, and the long lines.

Our preparations made the house feel cheery and charged everyone's batteries, including mine. It was a break from the mundane that transformed our little world and reminded us to enjoy the moment. When we returned to school a week later, we were all in better spirits. We liked each other again. And I had a head start on the holidays.

This year will be unlike any other our family has experienced. My college son will be here, and we will be celebrating another year when we can all be together. Although many things are different now, I think I will put up our surprise tree and play Christmas music and make sure we have supplies for baking.

And, in keeping with our tradition, I will take this week off from writing for Apple Pie. I do still hope to write some posts for the Moonboat Cafe , and you're welcome to wander over there for a break from it all anytime.

See you next week!