Thanksgiving, 2020 - COVID-19 Style

   Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Despite the global pandemic and the stress over our current state of education/careers that we each are living through, we are persevering.  Thanksgiving has become a very fun holiday for our family and we tried our best to pull off all of the usual traditions.

First off, I wanted to share our school pictures.  No picture for Mr. Rocchi this year...very challenging that their school district is completely all remote still.

3rd Grade - Mr. LeBourgois

3rd Grade - Mr. LeBourgois

Mrs Rocchi - Year 18

  We began the prep for Thanksgiving at the beginning of November.  We pulled out our usual decorations and added onto our Pilgrim and Native American friendship band - thank you Barbe Mimi!

 We made this pie from the apples we picked together!

Still trying to support our loved ones during this tough time.  Great-Grampa Carr ended up in the hospital but we had fun Facetiming with him!

The boys finished our 4th "quarantine puzzle".

The twins experienced history as we watched how the 2020 Presidential Election unfold.

Excited for little girls everywhere.

Time for Thanksgiving Day!

The Macy's Day Parade was pretty well done.  No crowds of people lined the streets in New York City but we got to see live bands, singers, Broadway stars, and dancers.  I thought it was very well done and felt good to see something "normal" during this time!

We kept things small this year with only Gammy and Poppy joining us.

Michael again held down a lot of the preparation -- look at that bird!

 It was a lovely, relaxing day.  Just what we needed during this very stressful year!

Wine never hurts either!

Almost ready!  Clucky donned our table again this year!  We wrote one thing on each feather in November saying what we're thankful for.

Allie made this great craft at her weekly art class.

We again used my mom's gravy bowl!

Cam used his gratuity box he made in 2nd grade to collect submissions from each family member.  He then read what we were grateful for during dinner.

After dinner we ventured outside.  It was a lovely evening!

With a beautiful moon!

Per tradition, as soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over, it's time for POLAR EXRESS and Christmas!!!

 We tried out a new Christmas Tree farm this year and it did not disappoint.  Evergreen Farm was just a 10 minute down the road to a nearby farm.  It was a lovely farm where the owner just told us to drive around his property, find a tree, and chop it down!

We loved very minute of it.  Felt like were were at Grandpa Carr's!

 We found the twins' tree pretty quickly!

 Then the search for Poppy and our big tree began...

We found some HUGE trees!

And a fun bridge to check out...

Could this be the one???

Yes!

Here we are waiting while Daddy and Poppy tried to figure out how to get the cars down to get the tree....

Success!!!

Is it going to fit????

Just barely!!!

Yup....

The twins made the annual journey to the attic to help us get the bins down to start decorating!

Simon was very overwhelmed at this point.

The twins used their Grandmother and Great-Grandmother's decorations on their tree.

Yup....

Our Christmas kitty

 We did some shopping over Thanksgiving weekend...

We did NOT buy this!

Billy and Melissa came back!

We had a few more nights of lovely weather and a beautiful moon....

Sad we couldn't see Santa this year...but sent our letters to the North Pole with the elves!

We tamed this wild beast!

Bah-Bah got a deer!

Rhys LOVES all of our Christmas decorations.

 We had a lovely rainstorm.....hoping for some SNOW this winter!

And then it was time to head back to school...we were ALL exhausted!

Onto December!