Our Thanksgiving

 And with that, Thanksgiving 2021 is in the books.   

Cody and Brennan came down Wednesday evening, with the plan to cook gumbo for Thanksgiving dinner.  Only Cody forgot all his gumbo ingredients in his apartment, so they had to run into Walmart -- which didn't have what he wanted, so they just bought chicken and sausage.  I'd already bought shrimp, so we were good to go.  

I still fixed the traditional Thanksgiving fare, as well, and so we all had plenty to eat.  They did eat the turkey, so I guess they've decided not to be strict vegetarians after all.   

Anyway, here is the obligatory photo of our food, 

which I didn't realize Cody was being a goof until just now.  

After dinner, the kids put up the Christmas tree, and I'm telling you it goes so much faster with people around to help.  

Normally, it would take me all day to get the tree up, but they knocked it out in just a few minutes.  Just to be on the safe side, we didn't hang any breakable ornaments, because I didn't know how the cat would react to all the dangly things.  Turns out, we needn't have worried.  Other than sniffing the skirt a bit, she hasn't shown any interest whatsoever in the tree.  

Even without the glass and ceramic ornaments, we had plenty to make a really nice tree.

And here is the obligatory photo of the kids in front of the tree:

Now, as many of you may remember, it's a custom in my house to get a new ornament each year, preferably one that reflects something significant for the year.  Last year, I got a plague doctor ornament.  This year...well, what else could I get?

That's about it for our Thanksgiving, unless you want to hear how the cat was delighted to find new people to give her attention.  

She finally settled down in Cody's lap, and Brennan was like, "awww."

But a few minutes later, the cat jumped up into Brennan's lap and curled up for a nap.  From the look on Brennan's face, you'd have thought she won the lottery.

That was it for our Thanksgiving.  I spent most of today putting out Christmas decorations, which I won't bore you with photos.  They're the same as last year. 

The most exciting thing today was when I stepped outside to check the mail, I found my neighbor down the street's house was on fire. 

I saw a couple of my other neighbors standing out in their driveways watching, so I walked over and we had a good visit.  I got caught up on some of the neighborhood gossip, including finding out my next door neighbor, Mr. Johnny had passed away way back in January.  I hadn't even known.  And I met a new neighbor who had apparently been living in her house a while, but I hadn't met her yet.  When you work at ADP, you don't have much chance to get out and have a social life, you know. 

We chatted a while, then I came back in before they even got the fire put out.  It was pretty chilly, and we were all out there in our house shoes and bathrobes/pajamas and such.  I went back out later in the day, but didn't walk down the road to see how badly the house was damaged, but from what I could tell, I don't see how they can salvage any of it. 

And right here before Christmas, too.