Colony Christmas - De's Experience

I got home late Friday night, Alex needed a ride to work early  Saturday morning. It was the perfect time to slowly drive by the lights in our lovely town....I should have brought my "real camera," but this is fine for this year. I will remember to bring GLOVES and clothes next time...pj's got a bit cool. LOL

Downtown

 Our library 

Town's garden at Visitor Center

 This business puts up a great display each year. 

Ah - after 90 minutes of walking the streets - I was happy to see my favorite coffee shack open.....I grabbed a sugar free skinny chai latte and turned Marco Polo on to share the magic with a cousin and some sister friends.

Krista and Stacia wanted to go see how much we could get see downtown before the meet up for the Colony Christmas Float. Colony Christmas is an annual festival.  There is another one in the summer. Our years in Japan have created a love of annual festivals for some of us.  Jacque suggested the nativity display at the LDS church. Wow - it was gorgeous....it gave me a vision for what I could have done with Mom's nativity collection....I do have quite a few of hers and am excited to display more next year.

Via Krista's photos

The main room had a giant display in the center of various nativities, two tall trees decorated totally with nativity ornaments, a stage with live music, and various nativities displayed along the sides of the room. 

Krista enjoyed contrasting the differences between this selection and the display she visited in Springfield, Oregon with mom. There is a Russian/Slavic and Alaskan theme here that is missing in their part of Oregon. 

Nesting dolls of all sorts are popular in Alaska. I hadn't thought of a nativity nesting set. I'll have to keep my eyes open.  

On Whale baleen

At one of the craft shows we saw a nativity made inside of a birch hollow. I will keep my eyes open for that as well.

This set is amazing...all the figures are GRAINS OF RICE!!!!!

We followed up the display by stopping at two of the many craft shows in town for the festival.

Arielle was sick (fever etc) and Cory was working. We decided I would stay home with Benny.  Benny likes Baachan's Black Friday  toys.

I'm having a couple of teas in the next week....decided it may be nice to polish Gram's tea spoons.... LOL

 ...which led to Benny and me enjoying tea. I'm establishing this tradition in the next generation. I brewed a pot of Samover tea....and Benny enjoyed his sugar free chocolate chip cookie. They are the best I've made so far - but they are still dry. I'm going to try again with more butter or something.

I had a fun day. I was disappointed to miss the Colony Christmas parade....the float has been a big deal around here - especially the last few weeks.

HOWEVER - sharing tea with just Benny was priceless.

I'm working on a post from Michael and the other's point of view. LOL