For some reason I am not swept up completely in holiday madness this year. To be honest, it may just be because I am not focusing on what needs to be accomplished. Thus, when I see holiday lights and falling snow this afternoon, I think the scene is lovely and I am not seeing signs that "gee, Carol, you should be attacking your holiday list."

Looking at my hands as I type I still have cuts healing from my Thanksgiving cooking adventure. I definitely wreaked havoc on my hands with my chop chop chopping. I have 16 knives and I have proven that I know how to use none of them. And in my rushing to cut I usually do the wrong thing, a knife slips and thus bandaids become a stock commodity when I set out to cook. I have thought about taking a course in how to use knives. I always love watching chefs on cooking shows chopping/slicing/dicing away with precision, but there's never enough time for that.

Here come the holidays, and are we ever in the mood to celebrate! As you know, our Second Annual Basket of Holiday Reading and Fun Contest is live. You have a chance to win one of FIVE baskets filled with 12 amazing books and holiday goodies. You can see all the details about this here. Our annual What to Give/What to Get Gift Guide has a list of great reads that will give you some ideas for what to ask for this winter --- and maybe avoid Aunt Gertrude’s perennially hideous sweater. I confess that besides buying for others, I personally ascribe to the "what to give myself" credo at this time of year.

Thanksgiving was a big celebration around our house this year, and I loved it. I come from a small family with just one sister who lives in Atlanta, so it's tough to make a family holiday big without lots of flying, and she never comes in for Thanksgiving. My parents live nearby so they joined us. We also have some great neighbors who I never get to spend enough time with, so this holiday provided the perfect time to make that happen. We gathered, ate, laughed (a lot) and somehow doing this made me think of the Pilgrim celebration, people just coming together to celebrate and spend time together. I mused a past turkey near disaster in a blog earlier this week. You can read it here.