Tuesday (Sept 23) holiday edition!

[orriskitten]

Hooray, Monday is over! How was the weekend? Any good plans for this week?

Now that we're in autumn, are there any fun or interesting harvest/season change customs or traditions where you are? Will you celebrate Halloween? Thanksgiving?

[orriskitten]

This past weekend was the réittir in Iceland, the shepherding of the sheep back to their farms. Sheep go free range during summer here and the main roundup is a 3 day event. 2 days of combing the mountains in large search parties to herd the sheep to a huge pen and sorting labyrinth. One day to sort the thousands of sheep. This is repeated on a smaller scale in 2 weeks to get the stragglers.

DH's cousin has about 600 sheep (plus the 1-2 lambs they each have, so closer to 1500 at this time) so we were involved. DH walked to help collect the sheep, I hung out with SIL, mil and the kids. Next year I hope to walk! Here are some pictures:







It was such a great experience. The whole community gathers. The kids get to play and pick berries. Dd learned to pee in a bush lol. Lots of fun all around!

For the other questions... We will be going to a Halloween party! I need to start getting creative in the costume department. It's not really celebrated much here.

We will be hosting thanksgiving for sure! We just need to figure out where. We'll be getting the keys to our new house on November 15-ish, so we can host in our empty house, or at the ILs. Need to think about it closer to the date, but there will be turkey!

[potatopie]

Cool pics, orriskitten!

I'm in the USA for my sister's wedding. It's a quick trip but a fun - filled week. And the weather is fantastic.

Because we're here now we won't be here for thanksgiving or Christmas. Kind of bummed about that but DH has wanted to spend a Christmas in SA since we moved there. So we'll try to celebrate there with friends.

[dorothyinAus]

Good Morning! (well, technically, it's still morning here)

This week is a pretty easy.  DH is on term break and had a 4-day weekend and on Thursday we're taking his mother to Melbourne to dinner and to see The Nutcracker.  I'm pretty excited about that.  It has been WAY, WAY too long since I've had a girl's night out.  I miss my Mom and BFF for that.  Other than that, it's just a routine week for me.

In regard to the holidays, Halloween doesn't seem to be a big thing here (yet) and for that I'm glad.  I hate Halloween, the dressing up, the trick-or-treating, it's just not my thing (though I admit I'm a sucker for candy corn).  I'm still debating Thanksgiving dinner, because usually it's far too hot to have the traditional dishes.  But I am going to make a pumpkin pie for a friend and send it over to him.  Not sure what I'm making for myself.  We're doing Christmas here this year, and then flying to the US on New Year's Eve before we meet my parents in Tampa for a cruise in early January.  I'm sorry to be missing Christmas in the US too, but this way we get to have two celebrations and I'll be in New Orleans during King Cake Season so I can get a fresh one and NOT have to make my own!

[pittpurple]

Hi all!
What beautiful pictures and sounds like a great experience for all. Holloween isn't really a thing here but it's growing in popularity - I think when LO is schoolaged people might dress up. I agree though, totally not my thing.

We always host a huge Thanksgiving meal. Last year Thanksgiving fell at the same time as Hanukkah and my daughter's first birthday so we had a Thanksbirthicah celebration at our flat. This year, we're (hopefully!) moving into our new home at the end of October so we're going to host a 2nd birthday / Thanksgiving. We used to do a sit-down evening meal for about 10 people but last year we did a small plate lunch for around 20 and I think we'll do the same. All the usual Thanksgiving things plus birthday cupcakes. I insisted we do everything ourselves last year but I think I'll take people's offered help this year and have more of a potluck - it was a huge amount of work last year.

[mrsukyankee]

I will celebrate Thanksgiving at mine most likely but other than that there really aren't other traditions. I am looking forward to wearing jeans and boots.