Christmas in Utah

I really don't know where you'd go to beat Utah for the best Christmases in the world. I'd like to go to the Kristkindle Markt in Munich once, just to see it. But I think Utah is about perfect when it comes to celebrating. The state brags that it has "the best snow on earth" and I think it does.  It's powdery and lovely and generally falls in Christmas card style melting quickly off the streets. Salt Lake City is big enough to attract every conceivable kind of Christmas production from the Rockettes to the symphony and of course they have temple square and the Tabernacle choir all for free. My favorite tradition is the Festival of Trees--hundreds and hundreds of trees all decorated to the hilt and all proceeds go to the children's hospital.  You have not experienced sensory overload until you've seen this festival.  We'll be seeing it next week--traveling on the train that runs from Ogden to SLC.  The train is great fun---clean with little tables to play games on and big windows to watch the snow.

Just this weekend (Thanksgiving weekend), we've had a lovely time.  Much colder than usual but roads clear to travel to my sister's house for the feast.  Dave and Catherine were up early for some insane black Friday shopping.  I slept in, and then walked to some nearby stores.  That night we went to the free "Christmas Tree Jubiliee" a mini-festival of trees here in downtown Ogden.  Today, we spent decorating the house like many families in the area and went to the Christmas parade downtown.  The parade was about half an hour and afterward the Christmas Village was lit and they had fireworks.  Ogden's Christmas village is charming.  Little houses like the one pictured above dot the block around the main city buildings downtown.  Each house is fully decorated inside and out with little Christmas scenes.  Vendors sell hot chocolate.  Music fills the air. Visiting the village is free. Also free during the season is the Messiah sing-in--if you do it in Ogden.  Or, you can pay and go to Salt Lake and sing with the Utah Symphony.  There are Christmas Carol sing-ins, inexpensive performances of the Nutcracker and of course lots of skiing and sledding.

Happily, the best Christmases come from within no matter where you live.  But if you want atmosphere--Utah is the place to go.

Gardiner's Village

Neat discovery!!!!  Gardiner's Village on about 7800 south and 1100 west in Salt Lake (although I suppose that address is technically West Jordan or something).  Anyway, an old pioneer bought a mill in the 1800's and in the 1990's somebody got a hold of the property and turned it into a wonderful collection of little shops.  Loads of fun to explore and they go completely bananas decorating for the holidays. 

For Halloween the theme is witches adnd there are witches everywhere.  You can even have breakfast with a witch or take a hayride and see a witch. There was a big sale there last Saturday and me and Catherine battled the snow to get there.  Now the theme is elves.  Everything is decorated to the hilt and even though it was sleeting so hard we could hardly see the elves we still had a ball. 

SNOW--Hmph.

There's a saying that goes "If you don't like the weather in Utah wait 5 minutes."   Very true.  All day yesterday there were scary forecasts for THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!!!!   Well---it looked credible--I got off work an hour early--raced home and grabbed Catherine because she had passed her driving test and was determined to get her license!   Poor kid.  We got to the DMV and got the license pretty quickly, but not quickly enough.  By the time we left to go home the storm had hit full blast. Catherine took one look and suggested that I drive.  Bummer to get your license and then be trapped by a blizzard!

Anyway, the storm didn't last long.  I went out to shovel and it was a beautiful night and despite all forecasts nothing happened at all during the night.  Soooooo I'm trying hard to be thankful that everyone can get  where they're going for Thanksgiving (including us--we're going to SLC), but darn it!  The weather forcasters all but promised we'd be snowed in and I wanted today off!