Lots of Ho, Ho, Ho

It seems like the holiday season starts earlier every year. The decorations are up in the stores before the kids have eaten all their Halloween candy. Retailers jump into Christmas so fast they almost squeeze Thanksgiving out of the loop. It’s more about Black Friday, a day I don’t participate in and cannot understand. For me, there just isn’t a bargain worth going out at four or five in the morning, standing in line for hours and risking the chance of getting trampled only to find out the item has been sold out.

I envy those who have their shopping done already. I have great intentions and often squirrel away a gift or two in August. As usual, I’m not done. I started our cards in October. My plan was to have them all ready to drop in the mail when we came back from North Conway on December 3rd. This might have worked if I had remembered to buy the stamps. Our cards went in yesterday’s mail.
On the travel scene:

Dick and I had a great trip to Disney in late October. The Halloween decorations were a nice change of pace. The weather hit record breaking temperatures of mid to high 80’s all week. We enjoyed the food and wine festival in Epcot, saw Boys 2 Men in concert at the American Pavilion, ate lunch at Tony’s in the Magic Kingdom and Dick talked me into auditioning for American Idol at Hollywood Studios (MGM). They didn’t send me to Hollywood, but we had a lot of laughs and sat in the audience for one of the shows.

A bit of nostalgia.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, we spent four nights at the Attitash Mountain Village Resort in Bartlett, New Hampshire. We had lunch at Horsefeathers in North Conway on our first day. The weather was great. I left Dick watching football and headed for my favorite nearby shops: Zeb’s General Store, the Penguin, Beggar’s Pouch, the Spruce Hurricane, Cool Jewels and the 5 and 10.

Loving nostalgia the way I do, I can never get enough of The North Conway 5 and 10 Cent Store. Stepping over the threshold of this historic five and dime is like walking into a time machine that sends you back into a bygone era. The toy counter is packed with board games, Chinese checkers, Tiddly Winks, Pick Up Sticks, yo-yo’s, paper dolls, magic slates, weaving looms and potholder loops. Remember Slinky? The old wooden floors creak as you make your way over to the cedar trinket boxes, embroidered handkerchiefs and the candy counter stocked with malted milk balls, snow caps and pink Canada mints.

On a high shelf, in between two metal wind-up toys, I spotted a bottle of Blue Waltz perfume. It was not for sale, but the saleslady took it down, opened it and let me take a whiff. The scent of that perfume in the little heart shaped bottle with the blue tulip cap brought back memories of Christmas shopping when I was a kid. Blue Waltz was twenty-nine cents then and my favorite perfume. I bought it for my mother and my aunts every year. Funny how the littlest things can jog the memory. I got into a conversation with the woman and found she grew up on the north shore, not far from where I live. We had fun reminiscing about Blue Waltz, Evening in Paris, Woolworth’s, Christmas shopping and what life was like back then. It was a great beginning to our trip.

We spent one afternoon of our stay at the Mount Washington Hotel. There was snow at Mount Washington and I was able to get some breathtaking photos of the mountains from the veranda that wraps around this magnificent hotel. We had lunch across from Bretton Woods, watching the skiers enjoying the winter sport.

We came home to howling winds at Seaport after a quiet relaxing four days in the mountains. That’s New England.

Thank you for reading my blog.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU AND YOURS.

BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS 2010.

Lina