the kitchen smells WONDERFUL!!!

My husband and I are making our first turkey EVER this week! We have always done the circuit of parent's and grandparent's houses, and while we are still doing most of those, his mom's side is coming over to our place.

And I am WAY excited. I started making a few things already... well, for other purposes as well. I baked two loaves of banana bread (from the bread and honey blog!) and the cranberries are on the stove as we speak. I also made some of Rachel Ray's stuffin' muffins for our church potluck tomorrow... my hubby isn't so keen on all of my crazy recipes for the big T-day.

He's excited as well... I think. At the very least, he keeps taking dishes away from me =) lol... So far, he is in charge of the turkey and the sweet potatoes and the glazed carrots. I'm doing the rolls and corn and mashed potatoes and cranberries. And then of course, there are others who are each bringing a dish. It is going to be so entirely yummy, that I simply cannot wait.

I think that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year, but my favorite chuch season is definately Advent, and in my mind it is no coincidence that they are right next to one another =) This morning I planned our worship services for the season and I am really excited about our wreath litany (from the UCC) and the song that is leading us through the season - "I want to walk as a Child of the Light."

What I have discovered so far in my life as a minister is that it is really hard to plan far enough in advance to truly accomplish all of the things that you want to in a church season. I found that for Lent, I simply did not have enough time from the day I started at the church to get ready properly. And Advent has come up just as fast and I feel just as inadequately prepared - at least to really add all of the smells and bells in that I want to. Not smells and bells per se, but I really did want to work on making worship more multi-sensory and participatory. It's not quite there yet. But then again, if I tried to do everything I'm dreaming about all at once, then I would't have anything new to do next year!