Miracle on 34th Street

This past weekend was chock full of Christmas spirit. Saturday morning Jenne and I headed over to church to pick up Christmas food baskets to deliver to the needy of Howard County. We took Red 5 (my MINI Cooper). When we arrived at church and pulled up in line to be loaded, well the MINI got some interesting looks. I could tell that the loaders were thinking that Red 5 wouldn't be able to carry anything, but we took two huge boxes of food and two turkies. Off we went to deliver the food. We were warmly greeted at each of the two homes, blessed by the families and sent off with thanks and wishes for a merry Christmas. From there we headed off to the Hunt Valley area and to Valley View Farms. We had a little Christmas shopping to do and we hadn't been to Valley View Farms in several years. We had a very good time, I took lots of photos (coming soon to my Flickr pages) and we found a garden Gnome for the ever lovely Anne. We went home and prepared for the arrival of our dear friends, Larry and the ever lovely Anne. They came up to join us for dinner and to go and look at Christmas lights in Baltimore. We had a wonderful meal at Akbars (no, not the Admiral) Indian restaurant in Columbia and then we were off to the Baltimore neighborhood of hamden to see the Miracle on 34th Street. Click the photo at the right ot see more images of this annual baltimore neighborhood celebration of Christmas in lights and decorations. Each year is more crowded than the last and more decorations and lights are added. We parked several blocks away and walked around for a good solid hour. It's best to park away from the main event and walk to it, otherwise you'll sit in your vehicle for a very long time just trying to get there. As you can see, the street was packed with cars and people on foot. Christmas music, laughter and conversation filled the air. Most of the conversation consists of, "Ohh look at that!" and "Ohh look over there!" and "Ohh this is amazing!" And it really is. Merry Christmas!