A Halloween and Christmas Switcheroo!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I was surprised to actually get my wish and have a Christmas with Halloween weather after having a Halloween with Christmas weather! I know we all had unusual weather this past Halloween. In my case, that meant a good amount of snow. As for Christmas, I was treated to a sunny day that was in the 60s - at least where the sun had collected on the porch. I had a tiny bit of time to enjoy that porch on Christmas and I did so with a Halloween book.

The inside cover:

Someone I follow on Tumblr had shared this book and said it was the best Halloween book they'd read in years. So I checked to see if it was in our library system and was surprised to see that it was! The librarian I checked this out from said "Oh, preparing for next year?" and I said "Oh, I'm a Halloween year-round kind of person" to which she said "Why not? It's fun!" Yes, yes it is.

This book is a collection of vintage Halloween traditions and history. I have already learned so much from it! I'm tempted to share all the trivia I learned, but you'd probably have more fun reading it for yourself. You get an idea from this book about the Old World celebrations around the end of October and you also get a clear idea of how Halloween would have been celebrated in early 1900s America.

The book is beautifully illustrated! The old Halloween pieces of art really add a lot.

And there are such fun details, like burnt edges and decorative corners. Even the sides of the pages are orange!

I think it's awesome that the author did so much research into early traditions and is keeping them alive through this book. I really can imagine what it was like back in the day from reading this.

I think Halloween may have been filled with more surprises and danger a century ago. I can go without the pranks, but they sure are interesting to read about!

I plan to investigate the author's reference material at some point. Perhaps some of you would like to as well?

Hopefully you can read this. As decorative as that page is, the design makes it difficult to read. 

So I had to shovel snow on Halloween night, but I got to read a Halloween book on a sunny porch on Christmas day. I'd say that evens things out in a way. :) Here's a glimpse of what Halloween looked like for me this year:

As for Christmas, I didn't have a lot of time to blog this month. So I'm just going to add a few highlights from the month to the end of this blog post.

Starting with a few of my favorite photos from this year's Miller Lights show.

We didn't have real snow that night, so some had to be created. I think this is probably some form of soap?

The beer tasting was fun as usual! Mom stuck with Miller Light and I had Miller, Blue Moon, and La Colombe. 

The tour and tasting were so packed on the night we went that we couldn't even get a table right away! I had to get resourceful in finding a place for my beer.

Yes, at Miller even the fire extinguishers make fine beer holders. :)

So here is that La Colombe I mentioned. It was listed as a "hard cold brew coffee", as you can see. I figured this was either going to be very good or very bad. It turned out to be very good! I was suspicious at first since it was listed as "black". I was thinking it would be a mix of beer and black coffee. But there was a good deal of sugar in there. Have any of you tried this drink?

I'd wanted to share some pics from Farm Girl Antiques earlier this month too! Mom and I went to their Christmas party and had a good time. They had Christmas music playing and lots of good snacks. As you're about to see, they had some great displays put together. I thought you guys might be interested in seeing how this shop looks at Christmas after seeing it at Halloween. I'd be interested to know if any of these antiques or vintage pieces look familiar to you!

Thoughts on this? :)

Kind of a neat bird's nest display:

Isn't a muffin tin or cupcake holder a cool way to display ornaments?

Isn't this a pretty display? I'm feeling motivated to put something together like that garland or swag up top.

Didn't the store look beautiful for Christmas? It's hard to believe that's even the same building we saw at Halloween! I'll leave you guys with a pic from our village. This Santa statue is new this year, and isn't he the perfect photo opp?

In case I don't update in the next couple days, Happy New Year everyone! 💖

Christmas Lights and Lites

It's that time of year again, time for me to share some pictures from this year's Miller Holiday Lites Christmas event!

I love the colors of the lights on this keg tree. You might not expect a keg tree to look cool, but it's a pretty reflective surface to work with. So any color of light is probably going to look good on it.

The Miller logo tree topper:

This is a sight you see as you walk along to the light show: a very festive and giant bottle of beer.

How's this for perspective? It's like some sort of prism effect.

Here we are at the Miller house as it's ready to show off for Christmas with lights set to music. I thought we saw some particularly pretty colors of light this year.

I'll show you a few different views of it in different colors. The colors make a big difference in how the house comes across. The blue is kind of spooky.

I think those dancing light snowflakes on the lawn were new this year.

This was one of my favorite color combinations. I like that shade of pink in general and those trees are looking pretty wild in red.

This view came at the end of the show. There were rainbow colors just going wild every which way.

Different objects showed up in the windows while different songs played.

It was fun how much the crowd got into the music this year. A lady next to me was doing the twist and then kind of hopping around through the whole show, and she wasn't alone!

Quite a bit of "snow" fell at the end of the show. I bet this was actually soap. I think that's what fake snow is normally made from. This photo makes it look like a real blizzard.

I was walking briskly while taking this one, so it has that kind of whoooosh look to it. I like the way they decorate the arches with snowflakes each year.

The Miller Inn

Into the caves! I like this shot because the crowd is looking up. I'm not sure why they're looking up. Maybe the tour guide said something to make them do that.

A closer view of the beer garden mural:

Sadly, the "ghost" of Frederick Miller no longer makes an appearance. I'm not sure why not, because he added a lot! But in his place, I'll add this gentleman who you can probably spot in the mural.

An eerily lit statue of... the ice man?

I wish this photo was more clear. Again, I was on the move and it was dark. Maybe it's from seeing all those Halloween props you guys make, but that's how I'm seeing this light fixture. It looks like a rib cage with two skeletal arms holding the lights.

Now we're back on the street, going the opposite way. I was glad to capture this view of the lit up conveyer belt up top. Cases of beer are traveling across it.

This is a peek inside "The Stables" where we get the beer samples at the end of the tour.

Inside the room, there is a collection of bottle openers on display. Maybe I'm not up to date and those are current beer boxes, but they look vintage to me.

You get three samples of beer on this tour. The first has to be Miller Lite, which is fine with me. The second options are below. These two photos are kind of fuzzy because I didn't plan to share them at the time. But later, I thought "Maybe some people reading my blog will have tried these and want to discuss them?" So, if you have, let's discuss!

Mom had the Miller High Life, although I'm pretty sure they gave her Miller Lite again. I had the Blue Moon Belgian White, which I really liked. The man at the bar told me it had Valencia orange peel and coriander in it. I could really taste the citrus!

The options for drink #3 are below. Mom had the Crispin Rosé, which tastes like a very sweet combination of wine/beer. I had the Blue Moon Winter Wheat Spiced Abbey Ale. That was a darker beer than the last Blue Moon I had. I'd call it a medium beer. It was just a nice, medium beer. Again, I liked it. I must be a fan of Blue Moon.

The Miller Light:

The Crispin Rosé bubbling about:

A little still life:

Cheers! 🍻

A pretty cool Blue Moon lantern lamp:

This is the music I listened to while putting this blog post together. I enjoyed it, so I thought I'd pass it along!

A link for those who read my blog in email form:

Christmas Relaxing Piano Collection

P.S. ~ I thought I'd share a book I just finished with you guys:

Reflections of a Small Town Santa is the true story of a man who played Santa Claus in Cedarburg years back. The story meant something to me, in part because Cedarburg means something to me. Maybe you guys would feel enough of an attachment to the place from reading my blog posts over the years to understand some of what he wrote. But really, if you've ever been in any small, country town you'll understand the setting.

The cover states that you'll laugh and cry while reading this, and that's true. I felt surprised at how emotional I got by the end of the book!

You get the perspective of what it's like for the person in the Santa suit. I've read stories from other people who've played Santa, but this was by far the most sweet. I have a feeling this is the sweetest person I've read an account from.

I could relate somewhat to being the costumed character who talks with kids from sitting out each year in my costume for trick-or-treat. He wrote this book in a way that made me think he kept a journal each year of the highlights. His accounts were a lot like the stories I put up about the trick-or-treaters in my blog each Halloween. I could relate to the unpredictability of what the kids are going to say or do. This Santa really had to think on his toes at times. I'm just sitting out there having fun, but being Santa carries some weight. This guy had to think up some meaningful comments on the spot, and he did!

So if you run across this book, pick it up. It's sweet and surprisingly thought provoking. I was left thinking that playing Santa or Mrs. Claus is a pretty meaningful way for a person to spend their life. 🎄