Living In America ..You say Goodbye, I say Hello, ...

[kickassangel]

New Thread.

Always. But not always for Thanksgiving. Long story.

Definitely Christmas turkey. i've heard of people doing goose but no one that I actually know iykwim.

Bunkups, I'm intrigued - which religions are you and DH from? Sounds lovely, having lots of different celebrations. Sorry if that is too nosy or personal.

No turkey at christmas for us (vegetarian) but we grew up eating turkey with my mum and duck with my dad. I'd preferred duck. My sister is doing beef this year.

Had really lovely day in Portsmouth today. Never been before but is brilliant place. We've seen HMS Victory, been on HMS Warrior and to the Mary Rose museum and done all the Victorian Christmas stuff, including seeing Father Christmas in his green outfit. Was a lovely day. Then DS threw up in the car on the way home...

Well that really is a traditional Christmassy event, SuperBunny.

Sounds really fun - until the throwing up part...

How is ds1 adapting now? Settling in a bit better?

He's been ok today, thankfully and managed a visit to the garden centre to go on a miniature railway to visit Father Christmas. Was lovely.

He's doing really well now. Is good that he has friends, we know people, we have family close by. Would be better if I weren't working so much and if his bedroom had not flooded again, rendering it unusable. But, y'know... all's good.

It's always feast or famine with work isn't it?

SB I probably made it sound much more exotic than it is! He's Jewish I'm a Catholic. We do the main festivals and when we were in the UK avoided all that business of deciding whose family to spend the holiday with.

Glad your ds is settling - they really are adaptable.

We had goose a couple of years ago. Nice but very rich and fatty. Am sold on the turkey IF i can find a free range fresh one (not as easy as you might think).

You need to put an order in now for one of those Bunkups. You can have it shipped but they get spoken for early!

Hi all - sounds as if everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a lovely day. My first ever attempt at dressing was a big success (whew!) - jabberwocky, thanks for that link to recipes, btw.

Our turkey was an organic one from Trader Joe's that came already brined, so we just had to bung it in the oven. It was very good and moist.

A friend is coming over today to help me put up the Christmas decorations and the tree. Will decorate the tree with dd later this week.

I'm going to have to get serious about Christmas shopping. I couldn't face the crowds at the Black Friday/Thanksgiving weekend sales. Did anyone venture out, and did you come back with any 'bargains of a lifetime'?

You're very welcome I'm glad they were useful.

We put up the tree last night - earliest ever but ds1 really wanted to. It's a retro aluminum so no problem with staying power, lol. Probably won't decorate it until this weekend; that was the compromise.

I have never had the fortitude to do Black Friday morning. We have scaled Christmas back massively in the last two years so I just have to do a gift for dh and the little ones in the family. Well, then there's Santa Claus gifts...

The kids were very happy because Grandpa made it up Friday. They spent all weekend attached to him.

I went out Friday, but didn't do much. Usually MIL and I make a day of it. I bought a bunch of socks for 1/2 off. (exciting or what? But 3 of us really needed them) And I bought 2 games for the kids. They were both $30 each, but it was buy one get one free, and I had a $3 coupon, so I got both for $27. And then I went and got pants for Colin. He wears through the knees of all of them, so I have to buy several rounds of them each size. DH's aunt always laughs at me for buying more instead of repairing them, but I told her they weren't really reparable. So I let her go through his pants last time we were down there, and she found 1 pair that were repairable. They lasted 2 washes before they were in tatters again.

I actually got my best deals before now. The week before I went to Macy's, and got the kids $165 worth of coats for $4.98. And I got a Nintendo DS for Colin for about $55, because a store next to us has been remodeling for a year, so they had a grand re-opening, and sent out coupons, had amazing sales, and then I got back a $25 gift card for buying one.

I do turkey for Christmas. I brine mine, and use a remote meat thermometer, so it turns out really well. I always somehow manage to get a free one for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that's probably why.

Wow, dooney, I really should try harder to get the deals like you do!

Anyone else's dc going crazy for 'elf on a shelf' or 'silly bandz'?

Dd is pestering mightily........

I guess mine aren't old enough yet - haven't heard of them. Maybe we still have a few Christmases before ds1 hits that stage.

Never heard of them, either. Had to Google both of them. I think I CAN wait until DD is old enough to get into things like that.

I got another turkey today. Costco had fresh turkeys for 39 cents a pound. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking other than, "Wow! 39 cents a pound!".

Speaking of Christmas, what does your ds1 want this year, dooney? I'm really stumped on ideas and ds1 doesn't tell me anything until really late.

I'm afraid we've started down the first steps of the slippery path known as Legos. He also asked Santa for Pictionary (They LOVE the I Spy books), a Crayola Glow Dome, and Transformers. And he also has been talking nonstop about Pokemon lately.

I will try to surrepticiously (sp?) quiz ds1. I know he likes legos but I'm afraid he is trying to do a secret letter to Santa thing which will, quite possibly, go horribly wrong when we have no idea of what to get!

jabber - ask him if he needs any help with spelling, ao that santa knows what to get him. tell him you won't read the letter, just write out the words he wants spelt - you might get some hints.

dd never really asks for anythign in particular - she's just happy to get toys.

lately her social life has been a whirl - a birthday party every week atm!!

we got a smattering of snow last night, but no proper stuff. we had over a foot this time last year, so just waiting for it to happen.

ALL we're talking about is food & weather. yay!

Good idea about the spelling! I'll give that a try. I had also thought about taking him to see Santa and posting dh near to listen in and/or having him write Santa and then offering to post the letter for him.

Hello ladies - may I ask....what do you give your dc when they have:

a bad cold
sore throat/cough
fever

Dd is coming down with a stuffy nose, and I never know if the drug store stuff (Children's Tylenol, Children's Motrin etc) is all pretty much interchangeable?

All Christmas decorations are up inside and outside. Finished tonight - whew! Quite a production, but it does look lovely and festive.

i have bugger all faith in cough mixture, beyond them being sticky so may make a tickly cough better for a few mins. i keep hearing that they make no difference.

for a fever - erm - what ever paracetamol is called here?

have heard you can rub Vicks on the soles of the feet & helps during the night but not tried it myself.

Paracetamol is acetaminophen over here as I found out when I told the doctor I'd given my ds Calpol!

On a much more fun note, we went to cut our Christmas tree in the forest today! It made it to about 25F so had to do the tailgate party in someone's house though! The dcs love trudging through the snow to find the perfect tree and it's one of the nicest things about living here! Hope everyone else's Christmas preps are going well. I'm off to finish writing the cards to send back to the UK.

We use ibuprofen/Motrin quite often. Have also been told by dr to alternate tylenol and ibuprofen.

I love getting a live tree. I used to go to a tree farm every year. Now we are doing the retro aluminum tree

I've heard about the Vicks thing too! Rub on Vicks, put on warm socks at bedtime. Supposed to work wonders.