Thanksgiving. That's Pure Happiness Right There.

Thanksgiving without The Circus is a calm day.

Especially when we aren't hosting dinner.

Especially when our dinner assignment is drinks.  And cranberry sauce.

The past four years I've spent Thanksgiving day cooking, which isn't a stressful thing for me.  I have it all mapped out and know exactly when to start things.

The turkey goes in first thing in the morning and the smell wafts through the house making the whole place feel warm and holiday-ish.

The house is cleaned top to bottom.

And with the turkey cooking and the house sparkling, I fill up the hot chocolate maker with mint hot chocolate and sit with a hot mug, the Thanksgiving sale ads, and watch "While You Were Sleeping."

That's pure happiness right there.

But not this year.

This year our house was torn to pieces as we push forward with our floor remodel.

Apparently it's been enough of a mess that it's driven The Man to drink, as I discovered this one morning:

We got hot chocolate from Starbuck's (over rated) and The Man continued to work on the floor.

I holed up in a corner where the work was already finished and cranked out a couple of chapters of homework.

Doesn't that floor look amazing?

And then I mashed up some cranberry sauce, piled the soda into the back of the car, and we drove over to visit with West's family at Uncle Tim's house.

Where we did get a peak at the Thanksgiving ads, but didn't see anything worth braving the Black Friday chaos over.

Aunt Shirsten is a culinary genius.  We've claimed next year to host again, since we'll have The Circus (hopefully we can talk Grandpa Dick into coming out of the desert to join us in the cold temps) and hands down, I need Aunt Shirten's recipes.  Her gravy was to. Die. For.

After dinner I got my butt handed to me in cards.

No surprise there.

Someone has to be the loser, it may as well be me :).

That's pure happiness right there.

I love this family.