Long Weekend *(Kind of)

Well, hello there!

I hope everyone has had a great long weekend/Thanksgiving weekend/normal weekend for non-US individuals 

For me, it really was a long weekend, in the sense of using the word "long" to describe a week that seems to never end.

So, to start with, I actually had to work Thursday night. I went in to Target at 5:45 pm since we opened at 6:00 that night for our "Black Friday" doorbuster sales or whatever. All I know is that it was late and I was tired and I saw someone buy like 20 bears that were each 3 feet tall for some unknown reason.

I also had to work Friday and yesterday and will be going in to work this evening as well.

So, it's been a long weekend/week, ya feel? (I actually don't remember what the last day I had off was, but my calendar says it was the 20th of November so I guess that was it)

Anyway, I think that's just a thing for people working in retail. It's awful, but someone has to do it, right?

On the bright side, I've been up to some fun stuff this weekend (when I'm not at work, that is)

On Thursday, I helped my mom make the Thanksgiving dinner. Since I'm vegan there were a few things that had to be done in 2 different ways so that I could have this item but everyone else wouldn't have to eat the no-meat-no-egg-no-dairy version. Because of this, I made my own sweet potatoes (actually just because I don't like the regular kind my mom makes, I could technically have eaten the regular ones but I'm just not that into sweet potato casserole), my own stuffing, my own mashed potatoes, and my own carrots. I mean, I didn't do any of these things completely by myself. My mom did the final bake/roast of the sweet potatoes (though I did all the other stuff that got them into the container they were in for this part), my mom pre-cut the bread for stuffing and roasted the vegetables that went in it, my mom boiled all the potatoes for mashed potatoes, and she did the carrot slicing. But I still did a bit of work.

Apparently it's easier to make a Thanksgiving dinner with help than by herself.

So we cooked and then later we ate and then after that I went to work.

And, what's even cooler than that I got to help is that my vegan mashed potatoes were so good that people didn't notice they were the vegan ones until I said something (I mean, they were eating all of my potatoes, guys, I can't eat theirs but they can eat mine so it's not fair if they eat all of mine and leave no potatoes for me, right??) that in the future, we only have to do one batch of mashed potatoes for big family meals! This will save a ton of time and also make the entire meal healthier for the family and friendlier for me. It's really a win-win-win, ya know?

So, yeah. That was Thursday. I intended to make a post on Thursday, but got all caught up in the Thanksgiving stuff and watching the parade and the dog show, so I didn't.

On Friday, I had work at a weird time (12:45-5:15) so I didn't get to do much since there aren't many hours before 12:45 and it's the time of year where it gets dark at like 4:30 or whatever, so I really just hung out a bit. Nothing too exciting.

But yesterday, Saturday, was a BIG. DAY.

Every year since like 2008, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, my mom and sister and I go to cut down our Christmas tree, then bring it home and decorate it! So, on Saturday morning, my sister came over and put her laundry in our washing machine (hers broke on Friday night) and then we set out.

First, we had to stop by Target to pick up some things from Wondershop (the Christmas section). We needed outdoor lights because there's a new thing where if there aren't lights on the outside of the house, Santa can't find my niece to bring her her presents. We don't know how this started, but we can't be the reason why Santa doesn't come this year, so we got some big, colorful, round lights to put around the big window and front door and down the front porch railings.

We also picked up a couple of other things because we're having our second tree in the living room this year for my niece (she lives in a different state and couldn't be here for the big tree, so she's getting her own special tree in the living room that she gets to decorate all for herself and it's gonna be awesome).

Then we drove like an hour and a half to a Christmas tree farm to get our Christmas tree.

Normally, it's only like 45 minutes to an hour, but the farms we usually alternate between [Christmas tree farms close every couple of years to let the trees grow, so you have to have a backup] were both closed. We [I] ended up selecting a farm that was a bit farther away than usual because this farm also had alpacas.

It was mildly disappointing. They had lots of different kinds of trees to choose from, which was exciting to me (I thought a Virginia Pine or an Easter Red Cedar might be nice, rather than our usual Eastern White Pine) but my sister didn't like the other types of trees. The Eastern White Pines they had were a little smaller than we usually go for, or else way bigger than we are allowed to get because of the size of the room the tree lives in. And the alpacas were nowhere to be seen! I thought that they'd at least be visible from the tree part of the farm, but no dice. I did get a nice pair of alpaca socks though [so, a lot of vegans don't believe in using anything made from any part of any animals, but I'm a little more lenient when it comes to wearables; I'm not into leather or anything, but if the animal doesn't have to die to make the wearable item, I'm okay with it--alpacas and sheep and other fleecy animals can be shorn without being harmed and need to be shorn yearly in the spring anyway, so we may as well find a nice use for their fleeces--that being said, it's best to be careful about where you get your fleecy stuff from--make sure the people who shear the animals do so humanely and nicely without hurting them].

ANYWAY, we found a suitable tree, and then bought it and brought it home to decorate. The tree we got was an Eastern White Pine, our usual, and about 6 feet tall. It was very easy to cut down because it was younger than the ones we usually get, it seemed. Once we got it home, I barely had time to go to the bathroom before the tree was up on the stand, waiting to be decorated! My sister handled the lights while my mom helped find the last couple of bins with Christmas decorations (somehow after 4 years, it's still always a struggle to get all of it out of the basement). 

While we were pulling our ornaments out, we found that a lot of the cardboard boxes we've kept them in for decades had gotten a bit yucky from the basement flooding earlier this year, so we had to eliminate these boxes [we had to throw them away because they were moldy and I don't think you can recycle moldy boxes] as we got the ornaments out. We got all our ornaments onto the tree, put the second tree up in the living room, and then it was time for me to get ready for work.

But, we got everything set up, so, now it's just a matter of waiting 3 weeks for our first Christmas! 

[my niece and sister are coming over the weekend before Christmas this year, because they were here for Christmas last year, so they're going to be with the other side of the family for the day of and with us the weekend before--it's gonna be two Christmases this year, whoo-hoo!!]

Anyway, that's how my weekend has been so far.

Today has been pretty chill. I just woke up and played some games on my phone and read a few chapters in I Am Malala and then went for a run, which ended up being a much longer run than I anticipated. It turns out that I run a lot longer and farther once I stop thinking about how long and far I've run, so instead of counting my miles or my time, I just listened to Hamilton and ran until the end of "Non-Stop," because by then it turned out to be noon and I was getting very hungry.

And then I ate lunch and now I'm doing this, but it's also time to sign off so I can make the meal that I'll be eating at work tonight, since my shift is long enough for a meal break. So that's all for now!

xx,

Sienna

The Fierce Feminist