Whew! Do you remember a TV program from ages ago called TW3 (That Was The Week That Was)? Well, tweak it just a little to That Was the Week-end That Was and you’ve got November 4th, 5th , 6th and 7th , 2010 at this establishment. It was –literally and figuratively–really cool!
Thursday, the evening candlelight tour opening date of the biennial Garrettsville Christmas Walk, found me and the detailer of the outfit, Sandy Pelfrey, putting in the finishing touches (Touches, heck, they were more like full-scale body slams!) around the place. I will NEVER find some of that stuff again; I just hope that my electric bill wasn’t in there somewhere…or my PCH winner’s notification…they all but promised me a winning number.
So, anyway, the detritus of my everyday living disappeared …somewhere…and decorations and ornamentations appeared in strategic locations all over the place, appropriately arranged, lighted and highlighted. Lisa Vani, of Silver Frog Studios in Hiram, wheeled in–as per schedule–with her trusty studfinder (There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’m not going to touch it), a pair of newly-framed pictures for the walls, and a good eye ; She got them–the pictures, not the eye– placed in a trice and Vanished into the night. Trusty Ben Coll plugged in outdoor lights, aimed indoor lights, lighted candles and the sopping-wet fire logs. The cats were forcibly removed to the basement. Baskets of booties were planted on the front porch. The cast of thousands–well, five, anyway–reported to their stations and we were off!
Nice crowd…not what we might have had if the weather had been a little less chilly and the economy less anemic, but a good group, full of bonhomie and ready to have an enjoyable evening. I love candlelight; you can hardly see the spider webs. We had a fine assortment of nibbles at the end of the kitchen counter : truffles and Moose Munch from Harry & David, assorted nuts and my new concoction, Imperial Cereal. I noticed that the truffles were moving out of the place even faster than the people . What’s up with that?
Friday was more of the same, only earlier and with the lights on. People could now get a really good look at the major-league quilt that was on display in the side entrance. It is being raffled off by its creators, the Village Piecemakers . The pattern is a modified Log Cabin ( I once heard an auctioneer say, as he was offering up one anonymous coverlet, “They’re all Log Cabin to me…or maybe Wedding Ring”) that’s been titled “Love In Bloom” because of the appliquéd flowers at strategic locations. It vas plenty cold, you betcha; people did not linger on either porch putting their booties on or taking them off.
When the last door closed on that group, it was off to the football game, where snow covered the field so that hardly anyone could tell where the yard markers were and the announcer and operator of the scoreboard were going “by guess and by gosh” trying to let spectators know what was going on. Not the outcome that we might have hoped for but a fine season, nevertheless. Wait until next year.
Saturday started with my sweeping off the back steps to reduce the ice hazard; it was like brushing off a Slurpy– little frozen granules in a water base–brrrr. Things did warm up and folks came in a fairly steady stream most of the day. There were a few lulls around lunchtime –they must have been lingering over the soup and sandwiches at the Garrettsville United Methodist Church (I got good reports on the pulled pork and the vegetable soup–can’t wait to get some) .
Sunday started strong and just kept rolling–nice weather, nice crowd. Skipped out of church ahead of the sermon–pity–tricked the cats down into the basement yet again (Friday or Saturday one of them caused “a scene” by bolting out the door when I went to find a wastebasket–Christmas Walk houses do not have wastebaskets on view–and ran to hide under the bed when she saw the volume of unexpected company. After a while she went into “lady of the manor” mode and lay on top of the bed like some sort of decoration. She should get an agent and be a “decorator’s cat” at some other venue.) I’ll have to come up with some new ruse to get them down there for the next go-round.
All-in-all, I’d term the whole thing a success. I had a fine time seeing people that I hadn’t seen for a while and telling the whole saga to anyone who hadn’t been following along in the Villager. You know how fun it is to tell your favorite stories that everyone has heard to people who haven’t heard them before? It was that much fun.
And now we get to do it all over again–minus candlelight.
Ho Ho Ho!
