The Rodgers Christmas Celebration

Last weekend the Big Scary Guy and I traveled to Mifflinburg, PA to be with my parents and Jeff's family for our Rodgers family Christmas. We arrived just in time for meatball subs on Thursday evening. Stacy had decorated their house beautifully, with a tree that could have been on a magazine cover, pine roping and red bows on the bannister, and old fashioned oil lanterns and greens on the porch. We sat around playing Christmas CDs and catching up on the latest news.

Friday we made the obligatory trip to Wenger's, a grocery store run by Mennonites. The prices are too good to pass up and the chocolate I was going to purchase turned into a cartful of bargains. Then we went to a farm market where I found several more food items I hadn't known I needed but discovered that I did. Before starting out on this trek we'd started a roaster full of sauerkraut baking and by the time we returned the house smelled heavenly. Stacy had purchased a selection of meats and breads from Germany on the internet for Jeff's birthday in October. They'd saved them to have when we all got together. What a feast! We had bratwurst, knockwurst, and some other wurst (NOT liverwurst, I checked) along with mashed potatoes, the sauerkraut and two types of German bread. It was delicious.

Then we went to the Christkindl Market. Mifflinburg holds it each year and every year it gets bigger. This year it started a block from Jeff and Stacy's house and stretched several blocks and around a corner. There are little sheds on both sides of the street where vendors sell everything from black forest cake to pierogis to soap to hand-knit articles to wines to craft items. I bought eleven bars of handmade soaps (if you bought ten you got one free) with such lucious names as plum spice, rosemary mint, and raspberry cream. They smell so good you want to eat them. We also bought a half pound of fudge and a giant bag of kettle corn. One of the organizations in town makes homemade vegetable soup and serves it out of a huge cauldron over an open fire. There is a blacksmith making kitchen implements and hooks and such things and a town crier in a top hat walks the streets stopping at various intervals to tell us that "all's well." Saint Nicholas arrives each year in his beautiful Old World robes. One of the winesellers hawks tastes of spiced wine he describes as "Christmas in a cup." We wandered up and down the street poking our noses into the sheds. We saw two men blowing long Alpine horns and the high school put on a concert in the Lutheran Church which is located right in the middle of the festivities. We look forward all year to Christkindl. One year I bought Tom's Christmas present, a cuckoo clock, there.

Unfortunately, neither Stephanie nor Brittany could get away from school to be with us. That was a disappointment but we did get to spend time with Tyler and the twins, Cain and Caleb. All three boys are geeks (it's a good thing to be a geek!) so Tom had a good time talking electronics with them. He even left them his latest copy of "Nuts and Volts" magazine.

After returning from Christkindl we ate pie and ice cream and opened our gifts. I had to work Saturday at 11 a.m. so we got up at o'dark thirty and started home. Tom got the short end of the stick as I slept the whole four hour trip. Sorry, honey.
As far I'm concerned Christmas has officially started.

On another note, I bought another CD, "Noel" by Josh Groban. It is wonderful. Nobody can sing pa rum pa pum pum like he can!