Christmas Time Is Here!

The Ohio town where I live is a quaint, country town that is pretty much the epitome of the small town America that John Mellencamp describes in his song "Small Town". Yesterday was the annual Christmas celebration that consisted of a parade, a visit from Santa, and a tree lighting in the center of town. So, instead of cards today, I thought that I would share a few photos from the parade and some of our Christmas decor to help maybe get others in the holiday spirit as well.

It was a cold, foggy afternoon but the holiday spirit was out in full force with the parade traveling down the main road through town and businesses along the route participating by handing out candy canes, goodie bags, and even free hot chocolate. We nabbed a spot to watch the parade from the car since it was too cold to stand on the side of the road.

Trenton's finest led the parade followed by the color guard.

We've got lots of pizza joints in town (but then again so does any small town) but the local Domino's is the one that's most active in the community. They're always sponsoring and supporting the school teams and during the community yard sales in the spring, they sell pizzas at the corner of the main intersection for $5 each.

A local business on the left with a band in the back of the truck playing Christmas songs. On the right, somehow the Grinch snuck into the parade with this sweet car.

These horses were pretty cool to see. The trailer on the right are members of the local Moose lodge waving to the crowd and inviting everyone to the after party later that night.

Here's the main attraction, Santa riding into town on an old fire engine! I couldn't get a good shot unfortunately.

After the parade, we went over to the farm market where Santa was waiting to greet everyone and take free pictures. This was the line to get in.

Here's my two year old son Jamie with Santa. The last few times we've took him to see Santa, he never really liked it or was scared. This year, he really enjoyed it and actually told Santa what he wanted for Christmas!

As far as our house, here's a few pictures of how we decorated this year

A big Christmas "Hello!" from Mr. Snowman!

The heart of our display, inflatable Snoopy, light-up Rudolph with a blinking nose, candy canes lining out sidewalk, and a small, light-up Snoopy that stopped working after the rain we had a week or so ago.

You've heard of the Fantastic Mr. Fox? Meet the Fantastic Inflatable Mr. Fox!

As I mentioned, Snoopy stopped working after it rained really hard one night. One of the bulbs got water in it and shorted out.

Our tree! It's not as big as the Griswold family Christmas tree but it'll do for our little house. I'm hoping for lots of cards under the tree come Christmas morning!

Just to close it out, here's a song that I think represents the season really well from one of my favorite Christmas specials A Charlie Brown Christmas:

Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful and happy holiday season.

Thanks for reading ... tomorrow, more cards!