giving thanks ... and buying stuff.

We spent Thanksgiving with friends this year.  Not that that would be a particularly surprising statement, coming from Alan.  But, this was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't spend with my family (or, to be more precise, this was the first Thanksgiving that I spent with my own, grown-up family).

A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends asked me what I thought of Texas, now that I've been here for about five months (I like the fact that everything is close and the weather is warm, but drivers are unpredictable and social etiquette is ... not what I'm used to).  The conversation turned to homesickness, and we both admitted that with the holidays approaching, we missed familiar faces and places.  (This will be the first year I can't attend my hometown's Christkindl Market, and even though I always hated traipsing around from booth to booth in the freezing cold, it's the principle of the matter.)  Fortunately, she and her family were some of the friends who joined us for food, fellowship, and the longest game ever of Dicecapades.

Alan and I even took glazed ham and baked pineapple (my mom always makes those two dishes for Christmas).  And I don't even like glazed ham.  Or baked pineapple.

Alan also experienced Black Friday for the first time ever.  Because we ended up staying so late at our friends' house, we dropped off food at home and then went shopping.  It wasn't nearly as bad as we anticipated, since there are far more people in Killeen than what we've been used to, but we also didn't even attempt stopping at Best Buy or Kohl's (the parking lots were absolutely full).  We purchased a TV, which was due to be replaced ... our old TV was so small that the last line of subtitles sometimes got cut off when we watched foreign films.  And, if that's not reason enough to replace the television, there was a VHS deck in the bottom of the TV.

Actually, the main reason we wanted to upgrade was because we finished "Resilient Warriors," so our Home Life Group will start studying "The Case for Christ" on Friday, and the lesson comes with a DVD series.  Nine (or more) people watching a session on our old TV?

Not happening.  We couldn't see the screen properly if we sat on the couch, so we typically watched movies sitting in front of the couch (which kind of beats the purpose of having a couch) or lying on the floor halfway between the television and couch.