From Buffalo to Bloomington: Musings of a Midwest Woman: Weekly Challenges plus Halloween is over and "the holidays" have begun!

Halloween was uneventful here. We typically only get a dozen kids, so this year since money is tight we opted to skip giving out candy.The passing of the ghouls, goblins, spooks and other sundry halloween-y things means "the holidays" are upon us. "The holidays" vary depending on background and beliefs... Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Festivus (Yes, really. And yes I have friends that do so, and yes it is pretty awesome) and others I'm sure exist but I'm not familiar with.. and then we roll right into New Years, and then my birthday! (While may not be one of "the holidays" to you, I've always considered it one!)

This is great. BUT...... WAIT!!! What happened to Thanksgiving?

Case in point. Sunday we went to shopping to pick up some things. Walmart and Menards are in full "holidays" swing. Decorations, music, displays hawking "tis the season" shirts, signs and booze. Yep. there was a booze display touting "make your season bright" with bottles as holiday lights... I was a bit taken aback.

Not by the booze display. That was amusing. But that nowhere (short of in the poultry section at Walmart where they had frozen turkeys) did I see anything resembling Thanksgiving... No turkeys, no pilgrims, no native americans, no cornucopias... nothing.

I'm sad. I love thanksgiving. The ideology is pretty cool. A day to give thanks for all we have?! Heck yes. It's too easy to take it all for granted. Trust me, been there done that. A day to spend with family, eating a feast until you are in a food coma and watching football?! Double heck yes.

And I respect everyone's take on all this, it's cool. But me, personally.... The holiday decorations don't go up until Thanksgiving. I typically start the turkey in the oven, prep everything else I can, and then start working on the decorating. My family always decorated the day after thanksgiving as I was growing up, but I like the idea of working on decorating and visiting and all that other fun stuff since everyone is gathered together anyway... plus if I choose to shop on black friday (though not very likely. I haven't ever, yet. I don't foresee going to either.. too many people.) I can.

To all this (and I suspect there will be a post somewhere over the next 7 weeks regarding the commercialism of "the holidays") I say, RESPECT THE TURKEY!!!

Here's a turkey ZIA I did to decorate my craftroom/office. It's cute, though I'm thinking about adding some color so its not currently shaded... I found the outline online and traced it into my sketchbook to tangle on.