Holidays – Page 8 – Gracious Rain

October 7, 2009October 30, 2020

Classy Halloween Treats

halloween

Ever dream of being so pulled together during the holiday season that you not only pass out Halloween treats to the neighborhood kids–but to the neighbors themselves? And to top that off, what if the the snack bags looked…well…stunning? Sound impossible? Well, not now…

Here’s how to do it.

You’ll need:

Clear cello bags

3/4 inch black or orange ribbon

Printable address labels

Halloween treats (We made our famous popcorn ball recipe without shaping them into balls)

Fill the cello bags with whatever Halloween goodies you’d like. Seal them with tape or a twist tie. Wrap the ribbon around the middle of the bag and secure with a square knot.

Click on this Classy Halloween Labels link to print off some fabulous spooky labels of your own. Be sure to type your own name below the “Happy Halloween.” Load your printer with Standard 1″x 2-1/2″ address labels and push print. Stick them on and pass out your pretty stuff. Or you can run them off on heavy paper and use them as tags–either way—

be prepared for lots of clapping…

April halloween

and rightly so.

October 3, 2009September 12, 2020

Neighborhood Spooks

Let’s just say…

A 263

that you made a fabulous treat…

and you actually had enough to share…

A 264

…with the sweet neighbor who fed your cat while you were in Yellowstone last month. Here, my friends–is a lovely way to do it and spread the joy all over the neighborhood.

A 262

We showed this last year, but it bears repeating. It’s always fun to get spooked around Halloween time—especially when it’s with something sweet! The idea of this easy neighborhood game is to leave a treat on the porch of a friend–along with sign–like this– for their door. Try to be sneaky about it–don’t get caught. It used to be fun to keep your identity a secret, but these days you just can’t feed your family anything unless you know where it came from. So be sure to sign the ghost picture–tape it lightly to their door and run. Then, they take a treat to another friend or neighbor–if they’d like to and so on. This can keep the fun going until Halloween night.

Note: I always send along 5 or 6 copies of the Ghost door sign– to save them the trouble of having to copy more for their neighbors. Be sure to click on the word “spooked” to print the ghost sign.

Happy Haunting!

June 16, 2009July 20, 2020

Summerfest!

Every year for the past twenty or so, our town has had an event that we call Summerfest. It’s a big deal. There is a carnival with rides and booths and enough food to make everybody sick and a parade and talent shows and a baby contest and fireworks and positively everything you could ask for in a Summer-festy type thing.

Like I said, it’s a big deal…but then this happened.

Yeah…that is a bus-load of water pouring all over everything.

We kept thinking of the poor booth guys and how soon they’d need a row boat. Our plans for our favorite day were pretty much scrapped.

But then, wait–what’s this?!

The beastly hurricane magically stopped and the sun came out and dried up all the rain…kinda like in that spider song.

We wasted no time getting to our annual parade spot. Our blankets were already there–pretty soggy, but still stalwartly holding our spot since Thursday. As I said, this is a BIG deal.

The babies had never really seen a parade or clowns or horses before.

They loved the floats…

…and sitting on various beloved laps…

…waiting for the next school band–their favorite–to come along.

Of course, men in kilts are always a good thing.

Some bald guy even showed up with pizza. He must have been raised right.

Yes, yes–we were having our usual lovely time…until…

Dude.

You see those black clouds?

I should have snapped some pictures of all the people running like they were being shot at, as those clouds cracked open and started soaking everybody—but I was too busy making a break for it myself–dragging soggy blankets and bodies back to the car.

We missed the fireworks–well, up close anyway, but it was still wonderful–as always.