Today marks the official beginning of this years Christmas Season. OK, call me politically incorrect, insensitive, whatever, but I refuse to use the term Holiday Season. To me it has, and will always be, the Christmas Season. Since today is Black Friday(click here to see the origin of the term), and we live near a large shopping mall, we will make sure we stay off the main roads today. Hopefully, we will have no need to go out at all.

Our Thanksgiving, yesterday, was very quiet for the two of us. We spent the morning preparing the turkey breast and other fixin's, ate an early meal, then relaxed with some reading, soothing music, some internet research and James Bond movies. Today and the rest of the weekend, however, will be a bit livelier when Veronica and Brandon show up this afternoon. Just gonna hang out and do some cooking.

Our excitement, being generated by the upcoming arrival of Guinness, has brightened up our Christmas spirit quite a bit. He will be five weeks old tomorrow and we will take him home with us two weeks from that. Our house looks like a pet store with all the toys, wire and travel kennels, and other puppy items about. We have also been watching every episode of Victoria Stillwell's It's Me or the Dog airing on the Animal Planet channel. This woman is amazing with her knowledge of training dogs. We'll make sure we post how Guinness' training proceeds. Did I mention we are excited?

We are making final preparations for our annual trip south next week. Most items have been gathered. Just need to wash and prepare the truck, load it and hit the road. Not going to be a camping trip like Maine/Canada was. It will be more comfortable this time. We'll pick up the fifth wheel where it is stored in Georgia, stay there for two weeks, head to Jacksonville for two weeks, back to Georgia for a few days, then back to Maryland. That is always the hardest part. Maybe we can get there permanently by next spring.