Christmas

Chickadee Thursday

As always, Chickadee had fun meeting the characters at Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO:

Her absolute favorite is Scrooge…she always does her best to look dour with him!

The 2024 Holiday Flower and Train Show

I think this year’s Holiday Flower and Train Show at the Missouri Botanical Garden was the best one ever! I don’t know if it was just how the displays were set up, or if it was the collection of Garden building replicas in the center of the room, but it was especially captivating and I loved it!

Seriously, the replicas…they’re outstanding!

The Victorian decorations on the Christmas trees were lovely:

In addition to the replica buildings, there were plenty of other buildings set up in different vignettes representing different types of locations, from farms to towns.

The greater room was beautifully decorated, too:

I don’t care how old I get, I will never tire of seeing model trains running through a Christmas village!

Mani Monday

I really liked how my first Christmas tree mani turned out, so I decided to do another one, this time inspired by the “Great, big, shiny, aluminum Christmas tree…maybe painted pink!” that Lucy encouraged Charlie Brown to find in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I used Holo Taco “Blush Money” and “Mint Mojito” with the added sparkle of “Silver Flake Taco” on a few of the nails…it’s mid-century marvelous, and goes perfectly with my Erstwilder “Pink-Mas” brooch!

The 50th Anniversary of Christmas Traditions

What can I say about the 50th anniversary of our favorite Christmas tradition?

We have been looking forward to this day since last year’s event. We knew it would be special to be part of so significant a milestone, and we weren’t disappointed. We were there in time for the parade:

We always enjoy hearing the Lewis & Clark Fife & Drum Corps play:

And then the hunt for the legends of Christmas. Let’s face it, Jack Frost is always our number one priority…(we even brought along our binder of character cards from past years, and had him and some of our other favorite characters sign it).

And the Master of Revels is a close second (he was actually the first character we saw, and the first to sign our binder!).

We found a good number of the other characters…by my count, we saw 25 out of the 33 characters/groups:

I especially enjoyed meeting the Christkind while wearing a dirndl!

The Evergreens are a fun group, and it was especially great to hear them sing “White Christmas” since they look like stepped right out of Wallace and Davis’ act!

There was a special display (hosted by none other than Father Time!) in the Tourism Center looking back at the history of the event, and collecting memories for a time capsule to be opened in another 50 years.

It was a beautiful day to be in St. Charles…I will never tire of the historic charm of the city!

Our Christmas tradition:

I am so glad we starting attending this event around 20 years ago, and it’s pretty cool knowing we’ve been part of it for almost half of its run…here’s to making more memories for the future!

Time to Glow!

It’s that most wonderful time of year…Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden!

I could spend the entire evening walking around the Central Axis…there are so many beautiful trees in addition to the lighting of the Climatron, and the music they play along with the movement of the lights really puts you in the Christmas spirit!

There are so many other beautiful displays outside the Central Axis, too.

The displays on Tower Grove House are also so much fun to watch!

I love that in addition to the familiar, there are always new decorations, too:

The Central Axis is always the best part, though!

Even on the way toward the exit, there’s plenty to see:

I especially liked this photo opp, and a nice lady offered to take a picture of all seven of us:

Merry Christmas!

Mani Monday

Today I’m featuring a mani with a special design just in time for the Christmas season! I used a base of the Holo Taco foil “Favourite Sister” and added Christmas trees with “Green Taffy.” The trees went on a little thicker than I wanted, but overall, I think I did a pretty good job!

Nikolaustag 2024

We’re a day late, but today we celebrated Nikolaustag! We wanted to wait until Bunny was home from college, which just happened to be today. We did all of our favorite Nikolaustag things, starting with stockings and decorating the tree. In addition to the children’s yearly ornaments, I also added two new ornaments…a Christmas Tree Cake that Ryan surprised me with this morning, and Hallmark’s rendition of “It’s a Small World.”

We always have wassail while we decorate:

And for dinner, we had our traditional meal of döner kebab:

I like to make a gingerbread dessert for Nikolaustag…this year, it was gingerbread whoopie pies:

This is one of my favorite days of the year, and between Bunny being home and the traditions, it feels like Christmastime is really here!