Fa La La La La La La La La

First of all, yes, there are the right amount of "La"s in my title. I know, because I sang it as I typed!

I love the Christmas season. I truly find it joyous. I love thinking about my Savior. And I love sharing Christmas traditions with my family. And traditions we have!

December starts with our count down calendar. We make it each year from last year's Christmas cards. We cut out pictures that represent what we will do that day. Then we hang it on the wall and the countdown begins.

Day 2 is my Christmas village. I have been collecting my village since 1989. I have 81 pieces now. Candy shop, clock shop, taylor, coal shop, grocery stores, bakeries, churches, book store, music store, city hall, opera house, police and fire, school and library, and the list goes on. I did notice that I have no medical personnel and no pharmacy. I'll keep looking - certainly there is a doctor's office somewhere out there. This year's addition is the German castle my son got me for Christmas while he was in Germany. It sits up on a hill and looks down majestically over the village. It is beautiful, if I do say so myself. I love looking at my village and pretending I live there. I imagine going into the shops, stopping at the train station to pick up relatives, heading on over to the Christmas tree farm, chatting with  the farmer as he saws logs, listening to the choirs practice O Come All Ye Faithful. I have a picture - it won't do it justice, but it might give you a small feel for it.

The castle is on top of the hill. My first piece is the Tudor house on the very right side of the tier below the castle.

This is the center of town. In the gazebo is a little man playing the violin.

Day 3, yesterday, was the Annual Sanford Christmas Parade. I love parades - even cheesy small town parades. You know you live in a small town when one of the trucks from the road division of Sanford has a brightly lit snowman on the back. Or one of the local plumbers has a float with a toilet on the back, water spraying out of it, and a man standing there with a plunger looking confused. Really. It was there. 2 marching bands. A few dancing and gymnastics groups. The karate group. Church groups. Very loud motorcycles. Some 4 wheelers. The community college. Several beauty queens for things like Miss Pinecone and Miss Brick City. Police and sheriff and fire engines galore - all with sirens blazing. We even had a semi from a local trucking company. It all ended with Santa riding in a 1925 fire engine. We bought the kids cotton candy and popcorn. We made quite an evening of it. The only problem was that it was too warm. It didn't FEEL like a Christmas parade. Ah well, you can't have it all.

Before the parade. Have you ever noticed that my mouth is HUGE? It takes up half my face.

I will be writing about more of our traditions as they happen. Suffice it to say, you may get quite tired of the Clark household before the season is over!