November has been a whirlwind. Really. I have no idea where it went. After having all of October off from UGA home games, we cranked that back up in November. We had our big tailgate on 11/3 for the UGA-Ole Miss game. The next home game was on 11/17 against Ga Southern. With an earlier kick-off, we didn’t go too crazy (no tent, no grill, etc.). But we did have cornhole, and some yummy Bojangles. And our friends Shannon & Michael stopped by for a bit. And, making her triumphant return to Georgia football for the first time in about 4 years – my mom. She had thought she would wait until next year, given the fact that she broke her kneecap 6 months ago. But since it hadn’t been giving her much trouble lately, she decided to go for it. It was a little chilly that day – well, let’s just say we weren’t really prepared. Had we brought warmer jackets, we might have been OK. We still had fun though, and after the game, we headed to Inoko for dinner. We hadn’t been there in FOREVER, and it was every bit as good as we remembered. Yellow sauce…mmmmm…..!
The next week, the kids had 2 more days of school before they were off for Thanksgiving. So Josh & I worked Monday & Tuesday (actually, Josh worked Wednesday too). But MomMom & PopPop arrived Tuesday evening, which is always fun. On Wednesday I started working on the desserts for Thursday, as well as some Chex Mix – my favorite! We also had some out-of-town guests – my cousin Windy, her husband Greg, and their daughter Claire came to visit for part of the day. We had some yummy BBQ for lunch and enjoyed catching up (unfortunately Josh missed most of this since he was at work for most of the day).
Thursday was the big day. Josh had the turkey fryer setup all ready to go on the back patio. This has become our hands-down favorite way to eat a turkey. Inject it with some creole butter marinade, and then give it a good rubdown with Cajun seasoning…SO GOOD. I’m not really a huge turkey fan, but I love this fried turkey. It’s always a big hit. We watched the parade, and the kids were so excited when it was over, because we always tell them that it’s not Christmas time until Santa comes along at the end of the parade. No Christmas music or decorations or anything until we see Santa in the parade. It’s the law. (at least the law in our house…) At that point we battled for control of the TV – dog show vs. football. Dog show won for a while, but eventually football took over. We had a delicious meal at a really strange time. I’m not sure what it is about Thanksgiving that compels me to choose a strange time to eat. We ate at 3 – it just seemed like the right time. Don’t ask. My mom brought homemade cranberry sauce & green bean casserole. Josh fried the turkey, and I made homemade stuffing, sweet potatoes, triple chocolate pumpkin pie, and pumpkin cookies. We were all so full afterwards!! Later that evening we watched another “start of Christmas” tradition – the lighting of the Macy’s tree at Lenox. I think this is one thing (along with the Pink Pig) that Josh still doesn’t really understand. But when you grow up with it, it’s just part of Christmas. I guess it’s an Atlanta thing, but I love that my kids are growing up with a lot of the same traditions that I grew up with.
On Friday the kids woke up expecting to see our elf, Elfie. Elfie was still at the North Pole…so we told them that Elfie was probably waiting for us to get our Christmas tree. Crisis averted. So shortly after breakfast that day, we headed up to Home Depot to pick out a tree. We were thinking that we normally go with one from the 7’-8’ category, but they looked so small – they didn’t seem much taller than Josh (who is by no means 7’ tall…). So we moved to the 8’-9’ category – those seemed really big, but we found one we loved, and loaded it up. When we got home, we got everything ready to put the tree up. We finally got it in the stand. One problem – tree was scraping the ceiling. We would have sworn we had 10’ ceilings! So we grabbed the yardstick, and Josh put it on his head (he’s about 6’2”), and it pretty much hit the ceiling. Apparently we actually have 9’ ceilings. Oops! We had to trim just a bit off the top so our angel would fit (and her head is touching the ceiling…), but it works. This is seriously the biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever had, but I love it. We only got the lights up on Friday before we headed out to see Wreck it Ralph, and then to meet Josh’s parents out for dinner afterwards.
Saturday morning we headed out bright & early for our last trip to Athens for the fall. With the noon kickoff, we decided not to bother tailgating at all. Instead, we’d go to the Dawg Walk, since we hadn’t been all year. We found what we thought would be a good spot, until we realized that the Redcoats were going to line up in front of us. Darn. However, once the players started coming through, I told Zachary to stick his hand between the 2 clarinet players in front of us. He did, and they moved apart a little bit to give him more room. He got so many high fives – he was SO excited! He wasn’t fast enough to get Aaron Murray, and Todd Gurley was on the other side. But he got Keith Marshall, Jarvis Jones, Malcolm Mitchell, Bacarri Rambo, Arthur Lynch…I don’t even remember them all. Zachary was one happy kid after that. We were so early going into the stadium that we just took our time getting to our seats. We stopped for a photo with the Uga statue. We paused by the hedges to watch the team warm up (they weren’t really even in uniform at this point!). And we just enjoyed taking our time. This was the first game all season that we stayed until the clock hit 0:00 at the end. Once again, we just took our time getting out of the stadium – we saw part of the trophy presentation, and heard the band play a little bit. Then we headed back up to North Campus to ring the bell. We had told the guys that we would go ring the bell if we won. Zachary also made a request to go see the Arch too, so we did that. I really want to go back up there sometime in the spring and just drive/walk all around. We kind of did that in 2011 for G-Day, and it was so much fun. Man, I love Athens…by the time we were done at the Arch, and made it back to our car, the traffic had mostly cleared, which was awesome. We ended up stopping for dinner at a Chinese restaurant somewhere near Suwanee on the way home (which was kind of funny, because the kids were watching A Christmas Story in the back seat, and by the time we stopped, the movie was about over, and the family was having their Chinese food for Christmas).
Now we are just gearing up for the SEC Championship game this weekend. We’re getting our old tailgating group back together for the first time in many years, and we’re so excited! Go Dawgs!
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