I was pretty unplugged for the Thanksgiving Holiday this year. Only sent a few Happy Turkey Day texts and liked a few lovely family pictures on Facebook and pretty much put the phone down and enjoyed some time with the family.

It was a nice break. Our kiddos didn’t have much screen time either and I only had one or two requests for “tablet time”–which I answered with a NO. We watched a miserable football game on Thursday night (sigh) and did a little shopping on Friday, but none of that 3 am craziness stuff.

And I spent a lot of time working on Coal’s leash manners, since he traveled with us…and tried to eat my sister’s dog…and my sister’s cat…and he considered taking on the neighbors’ dogs too, just for good measure.

My sister’s neighborhood is full of dog. I mean full. Nearly every other house had someone barking at him as we walked passed. That’s a new experience for my poor, isolated farm dog. {smile} And I don’t think he appreciated it. I think I mentioned before that he simply doesn’t intimidate. He’s a 50 lb dog bred to go head to head with 1800 lb bulls and win–obviously he’s fearless. Dogs barking over their own yard are clearly trying to intimidate whoever is approaching, but Coal just sees that as a challenge–and he loves challenges! But it’s all part of truly socializing a dog to be a good canine citizen, and he was getting the hang of minding his manners and just ignoring it as the weekend wrapped up.

Then we got home and suddenly we’re passed the lovely part of Fall and into the harsh brown and yellow of Fall, right before winter.

The geese are honking, and the leaves are curled and dead, and all the green grass is gone. There’s nothing lush or warm or inviting about the outside any more–everything is stiff and stark and hard. And it gets dark so early!

You have to look so much harder to find something beautiful.

But one of the things I found last year (besides Coal’s adorable puppy-ness!) was that in the winter when everything is so open and bare, is a great time to see the beauty in the MOTION of Creation. The perfect balance of dogs leaping logs in the woods…the rhythm of wing-beats as geese fly together…the drip and slow freeze of sleet on a fenceline…the way smokes curls up through the cold air…the heavy rush of an owl through the trees…the quick scurry of seed hunting mice in the grass…the swirl of cream through steaming hot coffee…

These are things you don’t always notice when everything is green and leafy and bursting with color.

I hope you take time to hunt up the beauty this winter as well! There’s always something good to be found, sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find it!

How was your Thanksgiving? Are you all geared up for Christmas, or are you savoring the last bit of Fall for a little bit longer?

I’d love to hear what you’re putting on your family Christmas lists this year! I’m kinda struggling with what to get our kiddos right now. Besides picking up a couple of these great “graphic history” (meaning comic book style!) books for our growing collection, and some clothes (which are needs, not wants) I haven’t bought anything yet. We just already have so much stuff, I don’t feel inspired yet this year. Gifts are my love language though, so I take the choosing and giving pretty seriously. I’d love to hear any ideas you have!