A UNIQUE CHRISTMAS

 We bought a live tree from the youth group at our church and have had it in the house all of December. Presents kept appearing under the tree, awaiting the arrival of my son and sister. They left Philadelphia on Wednesday night at 9 o'clock and drove until reaching VA before stopping for the night. Thursday the traffic was stop and go (mostly stop) all the way through the Carolinas, so they arrived at our home at 10:30 Thursday night.

 Saturday we spent the day getting meals ready and doing some last minute shopping and then decided to have dinner and open presents. We have never opened presents on Christmas Eve before. That is not a real fireplace behind my sister it was on Netflix.

 I was able to hide this box from Larry all month with help from friends storing it at their house until he went golfing one day and then a friend helped me get it to our house. I wrapped it and put it in the corner of this room with an afghan over it and the rocker in front of it. He never saw it since it is not a room he goes into often. It is a new desk chair.

 Christmas we all went to church at 10:00 and then we drove to Gainsville about 90 miles north to the Paynes Prairie Preserve to see alligators in the wild. Larry and I had been here when we did a project in Gainsville a few years ago.

 Bob loves seeing alligators when he is in Florida. Do you see the one he is taking a picture of?

 Look at all of  them on the other bank. We must have seen over 100.

Also so lots of birds.

 Unfortunately the alligator saw this bird too. It amazes me not more end up this way.

 At the end of our mile and 1/2 walk down the trail there were thousands of sand hill cranes. At least it sounded like a thousand.

 Lynda and Bob walking down the trail. The rainbow in the sky and then it started raining. We were a little wet by the time we reached the car. We then had a tail gate meal of shrimp, cheese, crackers and hummus that I had brought along for our Christmas day lunch.  We toured the Villages on our way home and then I made Christmas dinner. I had cooked the turkey on Friday. After dinner we played a game, so it was a very different and enjoyable Christmas Day with family.

 Monday we went over to Disney in the evening and road the monorail to the Contemporary Hotel where we could watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom. Bob takes great pictures with his phone. That is space mountain in the background.

 The castle, sorry no pictures of the fireworks but they were beautiful.

Bob and Lynda left on Tuesday morning and drove straight home arriving at 1:45 on Wednesday morning, 16 hours later. It was a great visit and glad they came down.

CHRISTMAS HAPPENINGS.

 Our church Christmas program was as beautiful as ever.  Our neighbors went with us and then we had a nice meal at Wallace Grill in Clermont.
The week before we kicked off the Christmas season by walking in the parade with our church's Celebrate Recovery float and going to Montverde Academy's program of Carols and Lessons.

  Last week we went to Epcot to have dinner and see the candlelight procession.

 The weather was perfect, even had a full moon that night.

 We ate a buffet meal at Germany.

 There was even entertainment during the meal.

 The Candlelight Procession is a very beautiful presentation of the Christmas story.

 Robby Benson was the guest narrator. (he was the voice of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast)

 The whole program was signed. It was a very impressive evening.

Susan and Bill came by for a visit when they were staying at Disney. I taught with Susan and she is now retired. It was nice seeing them and showing them our house in Florida. Glad to have friends stopping in.

NOVEMBER BLESSINGS

 All of November I have been going over to Thousand Trails and teaching line dancing. Slowly other instructors and dancers are showing up . Bruce is teaching this dance. Since TT wasn't having any Thanksgiving celebration I opened my house to all the dancers, some neighbors and friends from church for a turkey dinner. There was 13 of us. We had a good time getting to know each other a little better.

ALLIGATOR CROSSING

 There has been concern about cars speeding by our homes since they put the houses in at the end of our development, so a stop sign was put up in front of our house.  It is not a cross road so since there is no reason to stop I put up the alligator crossing sign. There is a pond in the front and behind our house and an alligator has been known to go between them.

So after much protest the sign was removed and three speed tables were installed along the road. Guess the alligator will have to cross on his own now.