Harrisonburg Christmas

We spent one weekend just doing Harrisonburg Christmasy stuff. More was going on than we could possibly attend, but we hit a bunch of great stuff.

One night, we went to “Horse Christmas” at Bridgewater College. It was not as great an event as last year, but hey, horses in costumes and free cocoa, right?

The next day, we took Carlos with us and went downtown to check out Harrisonburg’s Winter Wonderland. It was not the greatest event for tiny kids, as it mostly involved stores that don’t sell things for children having sales. BUT we found lots of fun stuff. The Santa they had at Agora Downtown Market was awesome. The kids adored him, and since there wasn’t a line, they had a real conversation with him. Silas met a Grinch walking around by the library. He looked pretty happy about Christmas. We got $2 peppermint hot cocoas at Heritage Bakery, window shopped at the new Cat’s Cradle location, and hunted some Pokemon. Friendly City Food Co-op had a great setup for kids to decorate gingerbread cookies and we got to eat them while watching some frustrated cops attempt to cut a bike lock. We take what entertainment we can get here.

We even FINALLY managed to get our decorations out. We don’t do an actual tree, but we hang ornaments all over the place and make wreaths.

Christmas decorations are full of mythical people, like Santa, and children who sleep.

We have this one problem area in our house–the counter by the door. I hate how it looks about 90% of the time, because that’s the place where random crap ends up. And I don’t just mean to blame my family, I’m as much at fault as the rest of them. It’s the first thing people see when they come in the door, and it’s always cluttered and ugly. Sometimes I clear it and clean it up, but as soon as it’s empty, it fills with junk again. So I thought maybe I’d use it as a spot to set up our collection of Christmas children’s books and the kids’ toy creche. Perhaps if it wasn’t empty, but filled in a purposeful way, it would stay nice. So far…not bad.

Yes, the books do come down like dominoes about three times a day…and the kitchen counter is still a mess, but I’m liking it so far.

I was…kiiiind of late getting my Advent wreath done, but I was pretty thrilled about putting this narcissus that Bethany gave me in the middle of it. The kids 100% don’t understand Advent and the idea of preparation and counting down. They have basically a month of Christmas, so they don’t exactly understand about “real Christmas.” But I enjoy it, anyway…

Light and hope in the darkness.

 

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