Our Thanksgiving was both fun and exhausting in the way that only “four days of no childcare” can be. The kids had a blast, I need a nap.

I prepped my side dishes for Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday. I contributed the sweet potatoes & the dressing, I baked some rolls, my mom did a couple other veggie side dishes and a fruit salad, and that was basically it. (The ham & turkey come from Honey-Baked Ham because ain’t nobody got time for that. Oh, and there were cupcakes, but those were also store-bought. My mom and I are basically saving our energy for Christmas.)

On Thursday morning, I dropped the girls with my parents, as well as my brother and his girlfriend (who drove over from Charlotte for the holiday), and then Chris and I headed over to his mom’s for Thanksgiving lunch.

Gratuitous “heeeeey I escaped my kids for a few hours!” selfie.

His mom lives in a tiny little town about an hour or so from here, and it felt like the area where a lot of my family lives in Mississippi. (For those of you who know the Meridian/Lauderdale County area? It’s a lot like that.) There’s something familiar and comforting about that, and I liked it. I also appreciated that all of Chris’s family was very friendly to me and made me feel welcome. I’d met his mom a few times before, but I didn’t know anyone else there.

And the food, good lord. SO. MUCH. FOOD. I forgot how much old Southern ladies like to cook, and between Chris’s mom and her sister, there was basically enough food to feed a small town. I ate way too much, and while I was sitting at the table, sweating and trying to decide how awkward it would be to faint right there at the table, that’s when his aunt Mary leaned across the table to me and said, “So are you ready for dessert now?” OMG.

This cat = how I felt.

Chris has a theory about old Southern ladies and their food: they really like to have company over to visit. And they figure that if they keep feeding you all of their food that’s loaded with butter and sugar, eventually you won’t be able to fit out the door to leave. He might be right.

After lunch, we rolled our stuffed selves out of his mom’s house and headed back to my parents’ house. Lucy was sound asleep on my dad’s lap (something about Pop-Pop in his recliner plus a football game on TV = night-night time for her), my mom was taking a nap, and Catie was watching Star Wars with my brother and his girlfriend. I always worry that when I leave my kids with someone else, all hell is going to break loose the minute I walk out the door, so it was really nice to see that things were so calm and peaceful there. I started cooking, and somehow Chris and I managed to eat again at dinnertime.

The rest of the weekend was nice: putting up Christmas decorations, a little shopping (no crazy black Friday stuff for me, I don’t have the patience to deal with the crowds), eating a ton of leftovers, visiting with my cousin and her family to meet their new dog, that kind of thing.

Lucy gave the sweet potatoes two thumbs up. Catie, meanwhile, took one look at the Thanksgiving feast and asked for chicken noodle soup. Because, of course.

But now, it’s Monday, the kids are back at school/daycare, and I’m trying to get back into my work groove. And lord help me, after the insane gluttony of this weekend, I’m actually really looking forward to running today. Which is weird for me, but I’m kind of glad to have these new little habits in my life.

Now I just have to remember to set the daily reminder on my phone so I won’t forget to move the damn elf on the shelf every night…