I took a number of pictures over Christmas and I've decided to drop them into roughly 3 categories (pet photos, deocorations and home entertainment, and outings).

One of the moments I wanted to capture was from my church's Christmas Eve candlelight service. However, some of it simply cannot be captured in a picture. It is the experience of going to church so late at night, the coldness in the air and the feeling of anticipation walking from the parking lot to the church. It is the greeting of friends, and the joy of creating music. It is the beauty of the dimly lit church, and the hush of the service as the candlelight is passed during Silent Night.

Traditionally, my family looks for Christmas lights while driving to and from the Christmas Eve service. This year, I tried taking pictures of a few memorable homes. Some came out, but some didn't. Here are a few of the highlights.
The first is of our town square. I love when tree trunks are wrapped in Christmas lights. The year that we coverged on Texas for Christmas (Hi, Texas Sister!), I saw lots of trees with wrapped trunks (I think they were live oaks). It is less common to see wrapped trees in New England. But our town has caught onto the idea.

The other interesting thing, I think, about New England is this view that colored lights are tacky. One of the first years that we lived here, I remember reading an article in the newspaper about this view. Here is what I like to think of as classical, tasteful, New England Christmas decor.

The funny thing is that white lights can be a bit gaudy too, if you use enough of them.

Now, I'm not saying that this home is gaudy. I actually like the balls in the trees. I'm just saying that it is possible to go a bit overboard with the white lights too.

Then there is the Crazy Christmas House. Unfortunately, all of their lights and wooden lawn decorations were not lit up that night. So, a photo op was lost. :-(
However, the 2nd Crazy Christmas House was lit up. Yes, indeedy! Now, remember, we are talking about crazy for around here. Not crazy for the country's standards as a whole.

One thing I noticed about this picture is how the whole house looks like a face. If the star is a nose, then the lights on the eaves are the upper row of the mouth, and the lights under the window are the lower part of the mouth with the shutters as the sides of the mouth. Do ya see it? Except what then is the tree on the left? a big wart? hmmmm... I wonder if they meant for it to look like a face, or if it happened accidentally?
The second thing, and the thing that makes this place particularly funny, is that it is a two family home. I've put an arrow pointing to the 2nd doorway.

I know, it is hard to see the part of the house on the right, because they have no decorations. I always wonder if the family on the right thinks that there are enough on the other half, that they don't need any. Or are they secretly unhappy about the exuberant decorations by their neighbors? Or do they not celebrate Christmas? I don't think it is that they don't celebrate at all, though, because a couple of days later, I saw that they put a few lighted snowflakes in their window.

Our own home, was lacking in our usual lighted garland (white lights, of course) and bows. I just never seemed to get around to putting it up this year. Ah well, I like how our home during the early part of the snowstorm on the day after Christmas.

Did I mention home entertainment in my title? Well, I didn't know how else to classify my dipping of pretzels in white chocolate. Again, it is a bit of a family tradition to have certain foods at Christmas time. I tried to do most of them.

1. White chocolate dipped pretzels - check.

2. Chocolate marshmallow fudge - check. Made with ghirardelli double chocolate chips, of course.
3. Swedish spritz cookies - erm. not this year.
4. Pfeffernuesse cookies - erm. Sorry, no baking. But I made dirt pudding, does that count? no? oh, well, I'll try again next year.
5. Peanut butter blossoms - no. can I give up yet?
6. Decorated sugar cookies - no. but that one is really grandma and aunt M's thing. so, I can get away with not doing those, right?
7. Nuts and bolts - erm.... guess I'm not doing as well on our traditional foods this year, eh?
8. Blue cheese ball - YES! I did that one! and man, we are still eating it.
9. Cranberry-pineapple jello - YES! See, I can do traditional foods. This also proves that I have my roots in the midwest.
10. Ham - YES! and boy was it good. Kentucky smoked even. (HB made it, but I can still put it on my food list, right?)

I think I'll stop there. If I hadn't just eaten lunch, I think I'd be hungry again.
I hope you had some goodies too.

Is it wrong that my home entertainment consists of food? Well, people who know me, know how much enjoyment I get out of food. And those of you who didn't know that about me before, know it now, eh? Guess it is the German heritage showing again.

Posted by danielle at 01:50 PM