It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It is no secret the the holiday season is my favorite season of the year! I just love EVERYTHING about this season! The smell of gingerbread, the snow on the ground, the smell of pine needles all over the house, holly all over the town, seeing the children anxiously waiting to sit on Santa's lap and tell him all they want for Christmas! Everything about this season is absolutely beautiful!

So this year Mike and Susie started decorating the house before Thanksgiving. This is something that Mom and Dad have never done before. Usually we just wait until Carey and I are out for break to decorate anything in the house but, this year they got a bit of a head start! This is great because in my house it has been Christmas for a week already (which is completely fine with me)!

Anyway, I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this Christmas season! Today I broke out my Michael Bublé Holiday station. I honestly can't think of anyone I would rather bring in the holiday season with than Bublé and the original Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr.)! I don't think I will ever turn off this station. Seriously, Christmas music is my absolute favorite, it is not going off.

This is seriously the most wonderful time of the year! Everyone just seems so much happier during the Christmas season and, despite the cold, everything is just warmer! I really LOVE Christmas!

A Few Finds

So Susie is letting me keep a few of my finds from the shopping extravaganza yesterday! I am so excited, I came into my room after lunch and saw these sitting on my bed!

Tommy Hilfiger earmuffs (similar)/JCrew Olive Pumps/Red Coach Crossbody Bag (similar)

Deals and Steals

So we did Black Friday differently this year. Usually my cousin and I go out at midnight and hit the Belk then we would come in and sleep until 5. At 5 we would get up and head down to the outlet mall to shop all of our favorite stores! 

This year my cousin wasn't here so Susie, Carey, and I slept-in and got to the outlets around 9:00. Oh my gosh! It was an amazing day! J-Crew was having a 50% off + and extra 10% sale! Tommy Hilfiger was 50% the whole store AND I got a pair of penny loafers and got $150 dollars off (can you say steal?!)! Unfortunately I won't see ANY of it again till Chirstmas because Susie is wrapping it all up and it's all going under the tree (sad face).

Such a great day with so many great deals and I can't think of any place better to spend it than my home away from home at Kill Devil Hills! 

Much to be Thankful For

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! We had so much fun at the farm with my mom's family! There is never a dull moment with Susie's family! The renovations to the house really opened up the house and it felt like we had much more room. We also had cable this year (which was a plus) and we were able to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade without the signal going out on us every two minutes!

Anyway, we had tons of fun! I helped Susie and Uncle Joe with breakfast and then got ready for the day with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on in the background (did I mention we got a flat screen HD TV in the back bedroom too!). I watched some amazing performances as I got ready and now have a LIST of shows that I am just dying to see!

Around 10 the rest of the family started coming and the house became a bustle of excitement with everyone pitching in to help cook or sitting around getting out of the way! Lunch was served around 12:30 and we had the works! Potato Salad, Mac & Cheese, Sweet Potato Casserole, Country Cured Ham, Turkey, my grandma's secret dressing recipie, Succotash, Snap Beans, Collard Greens, Ree Ree's Chicken pie! Sweet Potatoe Biscuits and Homestyle Biscuits, and Deviled Eggs! It was delicious! We also had my Uncle Joe's famous Sweet Tea! Dessert was made of Peacan Pie, Cheese Pie, and Chocolate Chess Cake!

After lunch my cousins and I went into the back bedroom to take our annual after Thanksgiving nap but failed because we had to keep our little cousins out of trouble. It was okay though because we got to spend more time together before each individual family had to leave! 

Afterwards my family headed to Kill Devil Hills to spend the rest of Thanksgiving weekend on the beach. Tonight was much more chill than this morning with Brunswick Stew and Corn Muffins for dinner and Pumpkin Pie (Classic) for dessert! We ate and then settled on the couch to finish watching the Dallas game! 

I am so thankful for my whole family and my family traditions! Thanksgiving is such a wonderful holiday and I have such fond memories of spending time with both of my families!

Last night I was going through the Bass family photo album and found some great family photos from Thanksgiving past! There were plenty more but I decided to just take the ones I was in! These are cousins only photos by the way.

I am the one in the pink dress! Thanksgiving 1997!

Red dress is me! Thanksgiving 1999!

Thanksgiving 2000! I am the one in the blue dress with the turtleneck underneath, stylin' right? By the way that wall isn't there anymore and neither is the room in the last picture, they were both removed during renovations of the farm house!

Thanksgiving 2001? Maybe 2002. I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm in the pink!

Thanksgiving 2008! A lot of cousin's additions since 2001! 

The foursome: Anna, Catherine (me), Carey, and Ryan! 

I am so thankful for my family and for another safe Thanksgiving! 

Family Traditions

So Thanksgiving is coming up and every year my family pack up the car the day before and heads out to our family farm in Edenton, NC.

Well now I'm here and I keep thinking about how this year, like every year is going to be the same. Unlike the years in the past though, it is going to be very very different. Every year my mom's whole family (all 21 of us) have packed ourselves into the tiny farm house to enjoy a late Thanksgiving lunch! We have so much fun laughing and eating and talking despite the fact that we barely have any room to breathe. After lunch my family packs up the car and heads down to Kill Devil Hills to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad's parents! At the beach we eat a traditional meal and then I stay up ALL night so that I can hit the outlets for a little bit of Black Friday shopping (my favorite shopping spree of the year).

This year is going to be different though. Nothing about the traditional routine will change. We will still go to the farm (already there) and we will still go to the beach. The only difference is the farm house. We renovated last year and the house doesn't look anything like it did before. My grandma, CC, at the beach is also not making her traditional Thanksgiving meal. Instead she is making Brunswick stew. It will be weird but I am ready to embrace the weird. 

Anyway, I love what my family does on Thanksgiving. It is so much fun getting to spend time with both families for this holiday, it is the only holiday that we get to do that for! I love getting to see all of cousins and spending time in two of my favorite places: Edenton and Kill Devil Hills! 

In Edenton everyone in the family bring a different dish and it is very much like a potluck. We have salted ham and oven roasted turkey, squash casserole, sweet potato casserole, mac&cheese, rolls, succotash, snap beans and more. We also have my Uncle Joe's "famous" sweet tea and an abundance of desserts (none of which are pumpkin pie). It is so much fun and very nontraditional, which is okay because it completely fits that side of the family!

Our Thanksgiving in Kill Devil Hills is so different in comparison to the one in Edenton! It is usually much more traditional with everyone dressed up all nice and the traditional turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and, of course, pumpkin pie! It is so different from the Thanksgiving at the farm but it is just as fun! Even with the change I am sure.

This is just one of my families crazy traditions and I love it! 

Bookshelf: The Yellow Birds

So I read this book last year for a school extra credit project. I almost didn't read it but the day it was due I thought, well maybe I'll give it a try. I ended up LOVING this book! I read it in one night and was able to do the extra credit assignment without missing any content.

The Yellow Birds is an excellent representation of a solider readjusting to life in the states after getting back from the middle east. Whether you have been to war (which I have not) or not you can sympathize with with the characters in the book. It is absolutely amazing and you fall in love with every character from the first page. 

This is an amazing book and I would read it over and over again! The story is so captivating and wonderful that people from all different backgrounds will love it! 

Uncomfortable Situations

Some times I have those days where I am thrown into some of the most uncomfortable situations. Sometimes these situations end up going really, really well and other times . . . not so much. But from these uncomfortable situations I always learn something new about who I am as a person and what I am capable of doing under pressure and out of my comfort zone.

So today I was at rehearsal for Tarzan. It had been a really long last day to my week and I honestly couldn't wait for rehearsal to be over so that I could go home and just lay on the couch and spend time with my family. We finished running Act 1 and rehearsal was almost halfway over. I was sort of wishing that we would be excused but at the same time I knew and wanted to stay to run the Act again.

Okay so side-note. The actress that play Kala is out sick with a virus and is a good friend of mine so I really hope she gets better. Since she hasn't been there her unofficial "understudy" has been filling in for her at rehearsals.

Okay, I digress. So we almost done with Act 1 and by that point in time I knew that we were going to have to stay after and rerun the Act. It didn't look horrible, like at all (for a high school level production it looked really, really good) but it did need some work. Tarzan and Jane are singing different together when my director calls me back to where she and her creative team were sitting. I went back there and was told that Kala's "understudy" had to leave rehearsal and that I was going to fill in for her. Being a compliant actor, I agreed.

Ya'll should know that this was throwing me way out of my comfort zone. I was really nervous just because I didn't know ANY of the blocking and I didn't feel completely confident in what I would be singing on stage.

Well I got over it and performed my scene as my character (I am Tarzan's mother by the way) and after I left the stage I ran over and immediately starting playing Kala. Although I was nervous, I got over my nerves and performed lines that I had never looked at of heard before and sang songs that I somewhat knew. And in the end I didn't do too shabby of a job. 

I was completely thrown into this role today and this was something completely out of my comfort zone. I absolutely hate being thrown out of my comfort zone and this was pushing it. I don't mind singing or acting on stage, at all. That does not freak me out because I know what I am doing. But honestly had no clue what I was doing for Kala. I did learn that I can work really good under that kind of pressure. I had never done anything like that before and it was interesting and fun and thrilling! I loved every minute of it.

Try to make the best out of the uncomfortable situations. Really playing into them can help you overcome any fear and break through comfort zones. Find comfort in the uncomfortable situations.