This year we were so blessed and were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with some wonderful friends. My friend, Nancy hosted and we all brought our contribution dishes to the pot-luck FEAST! The food was so amazing, just like home!
I was in charge of pies and cornbread dressing. I knew it was super difficult to find pecans here, so I had Kari bring me some when she visited. Our super secret family pecan pie recipe is the one on the back of the dark karo syrup bottle. The pie crust came out great too.. I used the Crisco’s pie dough recipe. To ensure that the pecan pies were done (and not runny) I put a meat thermometer in the pie and removed it from the oven when the center reached 200 degrees F… (a tip I took off of the back of the bottle). They came out just right!
Our friends, Lance and Nancy and the delicious food…
On the right is the cornbread dressing (charles’ grandmother’s recipe) – It was such a huge container! It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it. Look how cute Nancy wrapped up leftovers for everyone to take home.. Truly the hostess with the mostess!
The kids all had a blast – Will was in one of his “moods” and had one conflict after another, but Audrey was super! We left Charles there since he was going to Yas Island to watch a football game with the guys and I took the kids home. The next morning I got up with the kids and got straight to business decorating the house for Christmas. Decorating ended up being the biggest PAIN IN THE BUTT (*full description of the day below).
7:00 am: I got the decorations down out of Audrey’s shower – our only storage spot… Opened up the box our tree was in and realized I grabbed the wrong box when I purchased it over a month ago. I despise anything resembling a flocked tree and this one, although it wasn’t technically flocked, had spray painted white tips on all the branches…. ewww.
My internal convo:
Oh Crap. How did this happen?
Ok. it isn’t too bad, at least it is a full fluffy tree… with ornaments and lights it may not be noticeable.
White tips. hmmm. kinda like a french manicure. Alright, I can look past it.
At least we have a Christmas tree in a Muslim Country.
Crank up the Christmas music, lets move on.
Then it was time to put the lights on. They looked normal-ish in the package – the shape of the bulb was different but they were clear.. great. I put all the lights on the tree from top to bottom.
Plugged it in.
Wow. Oh Crap. They are hideous. I thought they were white? Looked at the box. LED, neon white-ish blue. UGHHHHHHH
Ok. try to look past it. The kids are excited, try not to be upset. Try to squint my eyes a little to see if it helped them to look better, nope. turn my head to the side.. nope still ugly. turned out the living room lights, maybe they will look normal then, nope.
I throw will in the car and off we go to get more lights.
Found normal lights! Victory! Ok. this will all be better soon. I grab the pkg. and go to the toy section to see if the trampoline we are going to get the kids is in stock. Wait forever to be helped. Find someone that apparently doesn’t know diddly and ask, “Do you have any more of the 6’ trampoline in stock?” – he replied – No Madam. All finish. OH NO.. it is like “THE big gift from Santa” Keep calm.. I have learned my lesson with stuff like this in Abu Dhabi.. ask someone else... so I ask “Can you go ask a manager?” His manager comes, I ask and he says yes and looked at the guy and said, “He doesn’t know nothing.” Great, I ask to purchase it and an hour later we are home with lights in hand and a trampoline in the car. (of course Will was clueless)
Charles took the ugly lights off the tree while we were gone and on go the new lights. aaaaand I only bought enough to cover half of the tree. double UGHHHH. It is now lunchtime and I have been trying to decorate the tree for 5 hours and nothing is done.
The white tips are bugging me. I hate this tree. I want to return it. So frustrated. Start crying – my emotions took over, the Christmas carols were playing, I felt the distance from home pushing on my chest, memories flashed thru the song, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” I started balling. Charles sensed that this was about more than just the lights on the tree and gave me a much needed hug. I ate a piece of pecan pie, wiped my tears and dug around for the receipt to return the $80 LED lights.
BACK. TO. THE. STORE. I look like hell. no make up, splotchy cry face, running shorts, t-shirt.. of course I run into people I know – seriously!?
I checked to see if they have any normal trees before we take the French manicured one down and back. They have one I want, but none in stock. Ugh Ugh Ugh. I find another 7’ tree in a box, different from the display but the sales guy assures me – ‘same, same’. ooookay. I’m totally skeptical. sales people here are all liars. Call Charles – take the other one down for me and box it up please. I am so exhausted and emotionally drained. I cannot purchase the tree yet until I return the other one since they agreed only to do an exchange. This means I have another trip ahead of me, but at least that means a normal tree… hopefully.
So now I am home. white tip tree is boxed up. I am back at square one. No tree up, nothing is decorated or done. I decide a bath would be a good idea since I have to go back to the store and I am not chancing running in there looking like that again. I am looking forward to just relaxing for a minute ..since today was totally unproductive I just need a minute. Both kids barge in strip down and get into the bath.. wahhhhhh! I get out, get dressed and then get both of them redressed and head back to the store. I take them with me this time and let them play at Toys R Us next door to burn off some energy. Got the tree that was “same same” as the good one on display but not for sale... Get home (after dark), open box. NOT SAME SAME! it is a wire-y tree that you can see straight thru. What a Christmas decorating disaster. I hate this tree too. but not enough to go back to the store. we’re keeping it. lets just put the lights on, ornaments on and hope it fills up the gaps enough… it isn’t perfect but it is good enough.
Lights go on. run out again. yes. STILL short on lights. OH MY GOSHHHHHHHH. I think I am going to blow.
Start crying again.
Charles is as annoyed with this whole tree day as me and he leaves to get more lights. I put the kids to bed. I read Audrey her daily devotional and naturally it was about being thankful during difficult times and had a change of heart.. I knew God was speaking to me thru it. I went downstairs and grabbed some chocolate and a beer out the fridge. Mama is feeling better. Charles gets home with a lot of christmas lights LOL, puts them on our new, wire-y tree, I put all the ornaments on – it fills in the huge spaces somewhat.. and I leave a little pile of non-breakable ones for the kids to put on in the morning.. done.
They were awe-struck when they woke up and just stood and stared. Magical for them – it made it all worth it in that moment:
I don’t think I’ll ever forget our first Christmas in the Middle East…
I am thankful for this verse:
Lamentations 3:23 “Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.”
Today has been such a great day.
Abu Dhabi Time
2 comments:
I was laughing and crying all at the same time while reading your post. I can't believe I was crying...anyways, thinking of you and your tree!
So terrible and funny all at the same time- had a VERY similar decorating day to yours- after a day of decorating we now have a wire-y tree up with no lights. The LED (oh no!!!) lights we just purchased are still in box... I think it will be neon-blue lights for us this year....I'm at the "I don't care" point :) Your tree looks great :) HUGS!
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