Holiday Special

Thanksgiving Day at the Gale Home:







The Day After Thanksgiving Day at the the Gale Home:

I am wearing shorts and flip-flops---it was 80 degrees

We got an artificial tree from Costco. Due to the high flammability of the state of California--and more especially here in the dry desert of the southern end of the state--we didn't even consider a real tree.

Shanna and I dragged it out of the box and put it together.

I was pretty excited about it being "pre-lit" because wrapping the lights around the tree is my least favorite past time. It took some engineering skill for us to get it put together, but we managed.

I plugged it in with great anticipation ...

...and only one section of lights came on.

My first thought was that the tree was faulty.

Then I considered the possibility that there was some

connecting that needed to be done between the sections.

Brilliant deduction.

I dug through the box it came in looking for instructions, but couldn't find any.

So we had to rely on our own electrical engineering experience:

random plugging and unplugging...

VOILA!

We had a beautiful, artificial, pre-lit

Christmas Tree.

And then I noticed the directions were taped to the lid of the box it came in.

It was Sam's turn to put the Angel on top.

He has waited 8 long years for the privilege!

When you are 7th in a family of 8 kids you learn to be patient and take turns.

Hopefully.

And the next day it rained all day long.

That is only the second time we have seen rain since we moved here. It was fun feeling like we were back in the Northwest with the rain coming down and turkey soup simmering.

Shanna and I made two batches of fudge with two different recipes.

One of us might have broken the thermometer into the second batch of fudge.

We're pretty sure we got all the glass out.

So don't worry.

And to top off the holiday,

BYU beat University of Utah.

Good times, good times.