A Fun Weekend For All

My guys are in Jacksonville for the weekend, visiting family and attending a Jaguars game.  They enjoyed a drive down to St Augustine and have been instructed to take lots of pictures - I'll show them to you later in the week!

The girls and I had a fun weekend - with all of the cinnamon roll mayhem I haven't been able to shop for Christmas presents, but I made up for lost time on Friday and Saturday.  In between delivering cinnamon rolls, I shopped locally on Friday and then hit IKEA on Saturday (while the girls made gingerbread houses at my mother-in-laws). 

Today we visited my sister and her husband in Philadelphia for a little Christmas-themed fun.  We went to the Macy's light show, the Comcast building display, the Dickens Christmas Village, and the Christmas Village around Town Hall.  In between we indulged in lots of eating - and enjoyed unusually warm temperatures (55 degrees) with no rain.  What a perfect day!

Right after I took this picture in the Christmas Village, a worker said, "we prefer you don't take pictures in here" - I guess she could tell I was a woodworker on the side and was going to recreate this intricate creche display. 

 

But, the best part - the.best.part. was this.  My sister discovered that a vendor from yesterdays display at Reading Terminal market had stashed his leftover merchandise in the bushes.  Apparently, he was selling illegally and was shut down - so, instead of dragging all of the Christmas trees, swags, and wreaths back with him, he threw them in the bushes - where we nabbed them!  That's right, we scored big!  

 

 We grabbed two boxwood wreaths, a candy cane wreath, an arborvitae garland, and a cross wreath.  I'll keep you posted - I kept the one boxwood wreath and the large garland.  The wreaths I originally had on our front windows have not fared so well - we'll see if we can salvage them.  Oh, yeah, and those clove-studded oranges?  They're all moldy and green - but they blend in with the greens, so they're still on the mantel! 

I had been getting a little cynical about the Christmas spirit being dead because of American materialism, but this weekend was so fun with family together time and "bush-diving", my spirit is renewed! 

How has your Christmas season been so far this year?  Did you enjoy fun activities with your family or were you rushing around and shopping this weekend?