11.26.16 - Belated Friendsgiving

Neil got in late last night. I picked him up and we got Jack in the Box before getting home, but I went to bed shortly after because it was late and I knew I'd need to get up with Clara this morning.

She didn't wake up too terribly early and even though I got less sleep than usual I didn't feel that tired, probably because I knew I had a lot to do. During the morning Clara watched her Christmas youtube playlist while Neil helped me clean up the apartment. Jack had been cleaning parts of it throughout the week, so there really wasn't all that much to do and it went much more quickly than I expected. Clara got excited about me moving the dining room set around to vacuum and started climbing all over everything, that was cute.

Because I had a lot of leftover time I decided to go ahead and put my Christmas decorations up. That might have even been my favorite part of the day. I love Christmas, and I had some new decorations Mom had bought me from Michael's last year on sale the day after Christmas. Every year my decorations expand and it makes the transition to Christmas Apartment even more fun.

New decorations this year.

Plus this year Clara was old enough to kind of notice what was going on. She eagerly pulled decor out of the boxes to examine. In the middle of the process she went down for a nap, and by the time she got back up I was finished, so she woke up to Christmas lights and a decorated tree, and she was fascinated. it was cute to see.

Uncle Neil tests to make sure the bulbs aren't too hot for Clara.

Somewhere in this process Jack got home from work and he helped with deep cleaning a few more things, like wiping off the ceiling fan. I notice he notices more details about cleaning once he gets into it, which is pretty nice.

Soon after that, Henry arrived with pie, wine, and tri-tip--and a grill! A small grill, that is, for searing the tri-tip. Jack went to Costco and got a rotisserie chicken and Caesar salad, and meanwhile Neil made mashed potatoes while I made candy yams. Somewhere in this prep Neil's friend Shawn arrived, and pretty soon we were all ready to eat.

Clara didn't want to try any of the food (her loss) and so had a PBJ instead. But she did sit at the table with us for most of the eating, and that was pretty nice. I told Henry I had seen a lot of posts on my newsfeed about people trying to avoid discussing politics while home for Thanksgiving or dreading inevitable political fights; it made me feel fortunate that in the crowd I was in I neither had to avoid politics nor worry about fights. We ended up talking about the recent election and how we think it happened for quite awhile, completely amicably. That was pretty nice.

After eating, the guys all sat around the coffee table and started playing 5 Crowns while I relaxed a bit with Clara and took a few pics. Shawn had to leave after awhile and I took his spot and managed to only gain about 6 points for probably 6-7 rounds! Still didn't win though--Henry beat me by one point. I've never seen a game so close!

Clara kept passing the scorecard back to Henry.

Soon after that, Henry headed back to the bay area. That worked out well because I was pretty tired. In fact I don't think any of us stayed up much longer.