Monday, December 25, 2017

Merry Christmas! Favorite December moments

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you've all had a fun December, full of winter activities. Looking back at some of my photos from the past month, I realized why I'd felt so busy! There was a lot going on. I'm going to share a few of my favorite moments/images from this past month.

This picture, which is also my desktop wallpaper now, was taken in the downtown area of the village. You guys might remember all the cool Halloween spinning characters this store was selling a few months back.


A close up of the lights on one of the trees that lines the main street area. You'll see those lit up in a bit.



Simple and classic!


You guys might also remember this cute birdhouse that sits outside a shop in the village. I think I photographed this around Halloween.



There was a slight dusting of snow the day I took these pics. We haven't had much snow around here this month. I was happy to see some start falling yesterday. I've always been joking that I could do without snow except for around Christmas. Looks like things worked out the way I wanted them to this year!


We went on the Miller Lights tour/beer tasting again this year. I took this pic in the visitors' center parking lot. That's a pretty cool, and spooky red tree! I like when people uplight their trees like that.




Check out the full moon we got to walk under that night! That's a keg tree, by the way.


You can see it in more detail here, complete with a "Miller" topper!


These are sights we saw while walking to the light show.



They play Christmas carols as you walk down this path.


On to the light show! The house looks like something out of Amityville at this point, or off the The Amityville Horror poster anyway. (The glowing windows)


But it changed colors and looks many times. The red was probably my favorite.



Those curved parts leap all around in sync with the music.


We didn't have actual snow that night, so they made use of the snow machine:


Isn't that pretty?


A bit of the "snow" landed in front of me on the gate. Then I could see that it looked like some kind of frothy soap.


Into the Miller caves!




The Girl in the Moon:


I'm not exactly sure what this building is. There are lots of cool scrolling type details on it, though. I think I'm going to have to find out what this is/was.


Inside the beer tasting area...


Mom with the giant Miller Lite bottle:


If you're familiar with downtown Milwaukee, you might have seen this bridge. I never thought I'd know what it looked like from directly under it. As it turns out, this was the stop for a Christmas train that came through town.


The train goes across the country, and if you time it right, you can catch it. And if you're really lucky like we were, the doors will open exactly where you're standing and you'll see a concert directly in front of you!


As you can see, the train is all decked out with Christmas lights. That metal door dropped down, and we got to see a performance.


I can't remember who we saw, but they were talented! I think if I was more into country music, I might have known.




Do any of these musicians look familiar to you guys?




This building has a drop at the top of it that forecasts the weather. So depending on if it is blue, red, or yellow, you can tell if the next day is going to be warmer or colder. I think those are the only color options. As you can see, the building looked very Christmassy this year!


Milwaukee's chandelier decorations:


That's the City Hall behind it.


After the Christmas train viewing, we happened upon this park area. This area hasn't been so well decorated in the past, so this was a neat surprise!


I bet it took a lot of time to wrap these trees, branch by branch.



Mom in the antique looking, light covered picture frame:


They had this whole living room area set up.


I got to feel like Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann on Laugh-In. 😁 I wonder what age I was the last time I felt this small in a chair?


The Cathedral Square area always has a nice light display and small trees decorated by different school groups.


Isn't that tree silhouette gorgeous?


The entrance to the park:


There's that weather forecasting drop building in the background.


Remember those round lights I took a picture of in the village? Here they are lit up on the trees that line the street.


This picture was also my desktop wallpaper at one point. I love this decorated bike. It's cute for any season.


And there's that birdhouse again, all lit up at night.


A look at the gazebo through the tree lot:



This guy is in a neighbor's yard. This is the same neighbor who had all the Halloween blow molds up this year.


Another one of his blow mold characters, looking cool against that green wall.



This is another yard you guys would have seen pictures of at Halloween. This guy has been getting really into the holidays the past few years. That "tree" of lights connects at the top of a flag pole. It's hard to see here, but the candy canes he made are circled around the bottom of the tree.


Here are those candy canes in the daylight. This inventive man actually made those candy canes out of pool noodles and colored duct tape! You could never tell, right?


These two are also his. It looks like Elmo is reaching out for the leg lamp, like Ralphie was. I'm not sure if that's intentional, maybe he's just waving. Hmm...


I wish you guys a great rest of your Christmas and a wonderful 2018! I look forward to reading your blog posts in the coming year and chatting with you on Twitter! 🎄

8 comments:

  1. Great photos! Beautiful decorations. Hope your Holiday was joyous. And Happy New Year! ;o)

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    1. Jeanne ~ Thank you! My holiday was joyous! Hope yours was too. :)

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  2. Wow Milwaukee looks amazing! Merry Christmas to you and a happy new year!

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    1. Bob ~ Thanks! I guess on behalf of my city. ;) I'd like to see some photos of Chicago at Christmas if you took some! Downtown Chicago has looked amazing around Christmas any time I've been there. I like how they do the fancy window displays. A Happy New Year to you too!

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  3. Every year we talk about heading into the city to see the lights and windows but we never make it anymore and that is sad. Life has been way to crazy sometime's I need to remember the small things.

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    1. Bob ~ When was the last time you were there? I'm trying to remember the last time I saw the shop windows in the downtown area. Probably 5-10 years ago. I remember the Marshall Fields store windows and I think I was there just as they'd switched over to Macy's. I should look up some pics of the windows online. I'm sure someone put a pic up on social media somewhere.

      Yeah, the small things are worth checking out and recording. I've been thinking of some places I wish I'd photographed years ago, because now they're gone. These places seemed everyday and not really worth photographing at the time. So yeah, stop and smell the roses as they say. :) And in my case, try to take some pictures while doing so!

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  4. Does that train go all around the country? That is a pretty wild idea to spread Christmas cheer!

    Love some of the unintentional spooky lighting.

    I'm curious if that style of bridge is popular. We have the Zakim Bridge in Boston which looks so similar I thought you might have been out here for a second!

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    1. Dex ~ The train starts up in Canada and it looks like it mostly goes through the Midwest of the U.S. Looks like the closest it comes to you is New York. Here's the U.S. train schedule:

      http://www.cpr.ca/holiday-train/schedule-united-states

      I thought it traveled through more of the U.S. than it shows here. The train covers a lot of Canada.

      Yeah! The unintentional spooky lighting! That seems to mostly happen when something is uplit in red. Those caroler statues look pretty darn spooky at night too.

      I looked up your Zakim Bridge, and wow! What a resemblance! I can tell why you thought you were looking at Boston for a second. The bridge in my photos is fairly new to the city. I'm not sure if this is a hip, new style of bridge. I thought they'd designed it to match our art museum!

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