Santa Arrives in Rural Southwest Michigan

We had a great Thanksgiving, despite having to drive through a winter storm. The highway was extremely slick in one spot, but fortunately all the drivers were slowing there. We only saw one inadvertent "ORV" in a 60-mile drive, pretty good considering the weather forecasters were using dire language like "blizzard" and "zero visibility". (And I did not hear any thunder!)

I took some knitting (the red doily) with me, but didn't want to knit in the front seat, which has an air bag, just in case. Lends a whole new meaning to the word "piercing".

Today I felt towards knitting about the way thousands of people are feeling towards turkey: just didn't want to look at it. So I stared out the window at the beautiful, small, postcard-perfect snow that was falling, watched the flames in the soapstone stove, and read the newspaper.

At 6pm we went to town for a carol sing. Verdict: people don't sing that much in public anymore and don't remember most of the words. Anyway, Santa came in an open carriage pulled by a beautiful Belgian draft horse and lit the big tree in the gently falling snow in the middle of town. This would have been much more picturesque if it hadn't been completely dark!

Then we all walked to the church (=biggest auditorium-type space in town) for more singing, cookies & cocoa, and a drawing for a huge gingerbread replica of the buildings on the corner. Yes, stuff like this does still exist in tiny pockets in America.