Cyber Monday and an alien cat.

   Happy Cyber Monday all. I hope everybody finds what they are looking for in the comfort of their own homes instead of having to act like one of the mindless Black Friday zombies mobbing over a dead horse.

   If you did venture out on Black Friday, I hope you were not victim to the pepper spraying, robbery, arrests, gunshots, beatings, and stabbings that happened across the country. Even Shatner has learned his lesson!

    Today, I am kicking back with the last of my pumpkin spice coffee creamer and a final slice of pumpkin cheesecake as I surf for deals. I think I have finally finished off almost all the Thanksgiving leftovers. Hope they don't come back to haunt me later :

   We have 90% of the Christmas decorations up, but I want to wait to get the good camera set up for some better shots before posting any. We still have a few little tweaks and twists to apply to some things before the Wicked Woods can be considered full on Yule.

    Which leads me to our little Scrooge, Lilly :

   As you can see in the above picture, she is like a Gremlin on crack. She spends every bit of her time terrorizing Archie, making messes, and being a general Christmas Crasher. Last night, she splashed an entire container of water, from her auto water bowl, all over the kitchen.  M had enough of it and decided to teach her a lesson and give her a bath. Hopefully that would cause her to not want to play in water.  Well it did not.

      It would seem that whatever planet this alien creature we call Lilly comes from, they love water. She enjoyed it! This was a total backfire. She even enjoyed getting wrapped up and dried off :

"He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!" 

   Needless to say, it had the opposite effect on her and she was wound up tighter than ever. She did eventually calm down and tried to act decent for a few scant minutes:

    Hopefully by tonight, we will have everything completed with decorating and can sit back and enjoy it. I am still fighting a persistent cough I picked up over the weeKEnD but I will not let that beat my Holiday spirit. Only 2 more days till CREEPMAS!

   The weather is very odd here. We had snow before Halloween, and we decorated the tree with the central air on due to it being so unseasonably warm.
   Oh well, I guess we will have to wait a few more weeks before we get "Walken in a winter wonderland":

One last stab.....

The best way to alleviate Christmas Decoration stress is to buy yourself a gun.

    As you start to decorate for Christmas (or Creepmas), you will undoubtedly run into lighting problems. When you are at your wits end, grab yourself a gun!
    NO NOT THAT KINDA GUN! This one!

   Yes I know it is not a gun, but it sure looks like one. Just trust me when I tell you this thing will save you so much time and effort. 

    Here is the scenario. I was up on the roof, putting up the 5th strand of icicle lights when the 3rd strand just shut off. I checked and prodded but could not find out what was wrong:

   I was not a happy camper. I was about to tell M to run to Walhell and get another strand when I recalled I had bought this tool last year on sale. She grabbed it and threw it up on the roof. In a matter of seconds the lights were fixed and I was back in action. All things said, the tool was able to fix 2 strands of icicle lights, a wreath, 5 regular lights strands and 2 net lights. Talk about a stress free decorating. Here is a little video showing the tool in action, and it WORKS! 

    I know there are many Halloween fans that use light strands in their haunts or for their parties. This tool would be perfect for that too.

    I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. We certainly did here at the Wicked Woods. Absolutely the best Thanksgiving of my life. My mother even commented that they seem to get better every year. Let's hope that trend holds true going forward!

    One thing I realized last night was that Lilly is not a Thanksgiving/Christmas cat. She was moody and uninterested all night :

   We dressed her to reflect her mood :

   She decided to sleep through Thanksgiving dinner :

   She did manage to keep one evil eye focused on the roasting Turkey smothered in garlic and sage butter.

  My mom was able to get her out of her bad mood by hand feeding her half the turkey. Lilly is 100% a Halloween cat.

  Archie is the Christmas cat. I honestly have never seen an old, crotchety, 18 year old cat act more like a kitten then when we drag the tree out. It's always been my tradition to put the tree up on Thanksgiving night. Archie was full of turkey, and full of the Christmas spirit.

   When he was not running around like a kitten, or chasing Lilly like 40 going north, he was guarding his tree. 

   This will be Archie's home base for the next month as makes his own fortress out of Christmas presents. He even went so far as to do his famous impersonation of Christmas tree lights:

   Truly a holiday to remember. We did not get into the Black Friday insanity. We decided we would just stay at the house and go insane in the comfort of our own home!

     Can't wait for Creepmas! Have a great weeKEnD yall! 

Happy Thanksgiving Eve everyone!

    Ye Olde Meade Manor is all decorated up for Thanksgiving. Not a drop of Christmas to be seen anywhere, but we do have it poised, staged, and ready to switch out. One Holiday at a time as always.

   We have a good deal of cooking to do as we have two (count em 2!) Thanksgiving dinners to attend. The first will be with M's family for a lunch time Thanksgiving. Then we rush back to the Wicked Woods and have a very quiet and late Thanksgiving feast with my family.  The only thing keeping us from having one huge meal is distance. Due to the double dinners, we are making two casseroles and three (yes three), pumpkin cheesecakes.
   I love Thanksgiving and all that it stands for. This year, I am thankful for so much. I am especially thankful for finding a creative outlet in the form of my blog and all my followers that keep me motivated and inspired to continue.
   One of the best things about this holiday is tradition. Tradition is a hard thing to come by in these modern days. I look forward to our quiet late dinner as we watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade (thank you DVR) and then putting up the Christmas tree after the table is cleared. I usually have to get a wheelbarrow to roll my mother away from the table (not really, but she always requests one).
    I hope everybody is having a wonderful Thanksgiving eve! We are getting ready to cook up a storm so I will leave you with this goofy JibJab video:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Christmas pushing out Thanksgiving? Commercialism or foul fowl to blame?

     We all complain about the Christmas decorations for sale in stores starting in July. We all lament when we hear the non stop Christmas carols and commercials starting November 1st. While most blame commercialism and jolly old Santa Clause, could it be the true culprits are "flying" under our radar?

   We have all seen the cartoons blaming Christmas and Santa for pushing out Thanksgiving, but could it be the turkeys working this angle to destroy Thanksgiving Day?
   Could it be the turkeys who pit Halloween and Christmas against each other in hopes the oncoming battle will eradicate the holiday between them?

   We could be playing right into their fowl plans!

   Turkeys have always spoken of a promised land where Thanksgiving is not celebrated. Turkey lore has long talked about this "Turkey land" where good turkeys will one day end up, free from the oppression of stuffing and gravy. 

    For decades, turkeys have been patiently waiting for the time of the mass exodus to their home land. They have tried to hide out:

  They have even tried clever add campaigns to throw Americans off their trail :

   Try as they might, we never loose our taste for the great birds, and we always seem to find them.

   Even the womenfolk make a mockery of catching these fab fowls and bringing them to the dinner table!

   Sadly for us, with the internet being accessible from nearly anywhere, it was only a matter of time till they found out that Turkey is not the land they they were promised!

   Imagine the anger they must have felt when they discovered that Turkey was just a land full of humans and political unrest.  A land where all birds, great and small, were served with gravy year round! The terrible humans even colored the land Turkey Gravy Brown as a last slap in the face of the proud fowl! That was the day the fowl turned foul!

    The turkey terrorist have already started by creating Turkey Deep Fryers, or as they like to call them Human House Fire Kits. 

   These evil devices promise to give us tender, juicy turkey, but instead, give us flaming death! These fowl gone foul have even made attempts at one of our great American icons! William Shatner!

    The time of the turkey is now! They are no longer sitting back and hiding while they wait for Halloween and Christmas to squeeze Thanksgiving out! They are making their power moves now:

   They plan on taking New England first and then moving into the west:

    Once the United States of America fall under their talons , they will start pecking at the rest of the world!

   Nothing will be able to save us from the turkey damnation! 

Except maybe this guy.......