More Christmas Fun

Because of our cruise mid-December, I haven’t been enthusiastic about putting up much of any Christmas decorations, or at least that’s the excuse I’m using. I did make the gingerbread house kit I’d bought pre-Thanksgiving, cutting window holes for pieces of vintage Life-Savers I melt into window panes. They’d gotten so sticky from old age, they were almost impossible to crush into powder. Not my best work. I also tried putting some cinnamon and nutmeg next to the lightbulb to see if the heat would make them be more aromatic. Meh.

But in any case, done. That was inside. Grant hung lights on the front of the house and around the lanai. That was the outside. I did get out our Christmas shirts.

December 6th was Holiday Hoopla, a games and food event exclusively for Town of Windermere residents. People like Steph who have Windermere in their address but don’t live inside the town limits were uninvited. To that end, there need to be people to check in attendees. Nancy’s daughter Brynna, a Hoopla committee member, asked the three of us to do that. There were 3 other adult checkers plus teen volunteers who needed service hours. Seemed overkill to me, but I wasn’t in charge.

When people arrived, we asked their name, looked them up on our lists, then gave them pink wrist bands. (The theme was “Santa in Florida”, so lots of flamingos, palms, and pink.) If they weren’t on our list, we gave them yellow wrist bands. Both colors got the same food and entrance to the games. Evidently, the committee knows how many of each we started with and will count the ones left to see how many residents came, and how many outsiders, i.e., non-taxpayers, came. I guess.

I got 2 things out of attending: a pink Santa hat I wore the rest of the month, including at the airports and on our cruise. I thought it was fun, especially since I’m from Florida. Second was that my helper teen was Mallory, the sweet girl who had cat sat for us a few years ago. She is a sophomore at the high school Clara goes to. I’m not sure how it came up, but we talked about her experience with growth hormones when she was young. She assured me it was all good. She gave herself the shots. She stopped taking them when she decided she was tall enough. 5’ 2” in her case. Good information.

Once our shift was done, Nancy, Grant and I decided it was too cold to stay. We took our pictures on the decorated stage and went home. I’m pretty sure the 3 of us didn’t have any wristbands.