Thankful for Friends

fall is hanging on

We had a non-traditional Thanksgiving this year. Our kids were not coming into town, and we were not traveling anywhere. We could have attended the Thanksgiving gathering here in the neighborhood, which is comprised of other people like us who do not have family living in the area. We have gone to that in the past, and it was very enjoyable.

But we found out that another couple in our community were not spending the day with their kids either. They are neighbors who have turned into good friends. So we decided to just have them over for the meal. We made the turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy. They provided two side dishes, rolls and a couple of pies. I made a cute pumpkin cheese ball, which was served with crackers, to tide us over until all the food items were cooked. Everything turned out great, and after stuffing ourselves (pardon the pun) we played a rousing game of Mexican Train.

Thanksgiving 2024

When we moved here five years ago, knowing that we had no family or friends in the area, we could only hope that we would make new friends in our community. We never imagined that we would find people that would become closer to us than our own family members, or that we would share holidays and vacations with them. We have a lot to be thankful for, that is for sure!

Oh Deer!

The other day I was looking out my back window and caught a movement on the opposite shore. We keep a pair of binoculars on the windowsill for this very reason, and I saw that there was a young buck who was going to try to cross the lake. The water is very low due to residual storm repair from Hurricane Helene, so I could see why he thought it was safe to cross.

He was pretty confident at first. The many sandbars gave him a good footing. But I don't think he anticipated the strong current once he got to the main channel. He was struggling to come straight to the shore down at the bottom of our property, but he wasn't going to make it. Thankfully, he ended up turning and going with the current instead.

Rooting for him from the yard, I watched as he swam downstream but still towards our shore. He ended up making it to the slope of my neighbor's yard two doors down. It's hunting season in our area. Did he sense he would be safer on our side as no hunting is allowed in the neighborhood?

young buck

Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade

Lantern Parade

With all the drama surrounding the theft of my rental car (and there are zero updates there), I forgot to post about my community's entry in the 7th Annual Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade. This was the fourth year that Imagery has entered the parade (our community was only formed in 2019).

The theme was "The Fantastical World of Flight", and the options of what to build were endless. Our design team takes into account the fact that we have many people in the neighborhood who, while they may never help in the building process, want to walk with us in the parade. So obviously we would not choose to build one large lantern, like Dumbo for example. We like to have a number of lanterns in our entry. The second consideration is that we want to appeal to the kids, as there are many of them along the parade route. For those reasons we decided to go with Santa and his reindeer.

We constructed a six foot long sleigh for Santa, and built his nine reindeer, each of whom was five feet long. We added ten twelve inch square gift boxes, four lollipops and four candy canes. All of these were constructed of wire, lit with fairy lights, then covered with two layers of tissue paper. We also have a lit banner with our name - Imagery - in from of our entry. We had 32 people in our unit, including two of our own parade marshalls to keep people in line and five of the Singing Elves from our community. 

We had requested to be last in the parade, and our wish was granted. What better way to end any parade than with Santa? We were greeted with many claps and cheers, as well as spontaneous renditions of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" along the parade route. And we won First Place in the "Group" category for the fourth year in a row! 

Imagery Lantern Parade entry

Next year's theme is "Into the Deep Blue Sea". We have our thinking caps on...