MERRY CHRISTMAS

A little Christmas love to everyone. I wish I could give you all some of these molasses cookies. I hadn't made them in several years, but since my son and sister are coming for the holidays I decided to roll, cut and decorate them.

The tree is up and the RV is decorated. The report from Santa's sleigh is they are almost here. They left Philadelphia last night at 9 and drove to 3 this morning. They slept at a Holiday Inn for a few hours and were on the road around 8. They should arrive here around 10, a long drive.

Merry Christmas to all and I hope you have a blessed holiday. Love Dottie and Larry

EPCOT

On Wednesday Tom and Barb got to ride in the RV when we moved from Clerbrook to Thousand Trails.

They had the evening alone while Larry and I went to Sebring for the Blue Heron Christmas party.

On Thursday we went to EPCOT.

Larry with Chip and Dale in the background.

We all went Soarin.

Each country had special Christmas presentations based on their traditions.

We waited in line for over an hour to see the Christmas Program at the American Garden Theater.

The program started with the orchestra and horns.

The light processional with hundreds of students from choirs all around the area.

The choir in green are professional singers and all of the yellow are students. The music was beautiful.

The Christmas story was read and then carols were sung. WOW it was inspiring.

After the program we had dinner and then waited for a couple hours to see the illumination and fireworks at 9:30. I think we did it all.

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Larry's sister, Barb, and her husband Tom flew down on Dec. 17 to stay with us for the week. It was the first time Tom had ever been to Florida and Barb had never been to Disney so on Tuesday we all went to Hollywood Studios. Larry and I worked here three years ago, then it was called MGM.

We went to the Indiana Jones Show and saw all these cars stunts at Camera, Lights, Action.

Larry and I enjoyed watching three contestants compete for American Idol. There are four shows a day then the winners from each show compete in the evening. That winner gets a ticket to go to the front of the line at any American Idol audition in the USA.

There even was a panel of judges and they commented after each performance, just like on TV. The audience voted on a keypad on their chair.

We always enjoy the street entertainment. Barb(behind Larry) got to be part of it.

The Street of America had the most amazing light show I have ever seen. There are over 5 million lights!

Christmas music was playing and the lights danced to it.

The Osborne family started it with 1000 lights in Iowa.

Do you see the Mickey in the middle of the tree? There were suppose to be 29 hidden Mickeys on the street. I think we found 10.

What a beautiful way to celebrate the season!

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Sunday night , Dec 11 we went to a beautiful Christmas program at Clermont Methodist Church. It was outstanding.

The Cooper Memorial Library in Clermont had special Christmas programs on Monday afternoons. The first one we attended was a chorus from one of the high schools.

The next Monday at the library was a hand bell group called the Magic of Bronze.

The ringers were from all over Lake County and all were very experienced. Because they did not have all of their members they were only able to play some of their music. Of course they played lots of Christmas songs.

Each ringer told a little about themselves and something about how the bells are played. It was very interesting.

I even got a chance to ring a bell. We played Jingle Bells and I think it sounded pretty good.

MIRACLE ON 7th STREET

The Clermont Methodist Church gives toys to families in need in the community each year. They open their doors to a room full of toys all donated by church members, some new some gently used.

We arrived to help at 8:00 on Saturday morning,Dec 10, and there was already a line waiting for it to open at 9. Some people had been in line since early morning.

There were over 50 workers.

The toys were organized by age group and sex. We tried to keep the tables filled.
Teen age boys was the emptiest. There were even gift card to be given if needed.

There was even a room full of bikes for all ages.

Each shopper was able to get three gifts for each child plus 2 stuffed animals and a book.

When they were finished shopping the toys were put in heavy duty black trash bags and they were given wrapping paper.

It was suppose to be over at noon but when we left at 2 there was still a line waiting to go in. Over 900 children will receive gifts on Christmas because of this project.

LIGHT UP CLERMONT

This is Citrus Tower in Clermont. We went here for to a fund raiser for New Beginnings the evening of Dec. 1. New Beginnings is a faith based ministry helping to feed, clothe, and mentor over 3000 homeless children in Lake County.
The suggested wear for the evening was cocktail attire, but what we didn't know was that most of it was going to be outside and the temp was 58 and breezy. There was lots of good food, music, and dancing. The tower was lit for Christmas, if you look closely you can see the lines of lights. We went to the top of the tower, 275 feet up, and looked out all over Lake County. It was a very well run event but too cold to enjoy all it had to offer.

Dec 2 we went into Clermont with our friends Jim and Sue and saw the lighting ceremony of all the decorations around the lake. We were introduced to Ritters ice cream the night before at the Citrus Tower Gala. They have a holiday mint ice cream that is delicious, so of course we had to have a dish.

We went back to Clermont on Saturday for the craft fair and Christmas parade.

There was good entertainment by school singing groups on Friday night and Saturday.

It was a very good parade.

There must have been over 200 children in this baton twirling group.

All the middle school and high schools had marching bands in the parade.

Some of the churches had floats or marching groups.

Llamas in a parade was a first for me.

And of course, after over an hour the parade ended with Mr. and Mrs. Claus. May I be the first to say Merry Christmas everyone.