it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Remember the snowy picture from one of my last posts? It was taken in March 2009... our one and only real storm from last winter. (When it comes to snow, we take what we can get in these parts.) Well, seems like I should have waited a few days... Here is a picture of the mouse house taken on Saturday! We had about a foot of snow here. That's a lot of snow, but to have that much snow in one storm is almost unheard of in Caroline County.

Yay! I don't remember the last time we had a White Christmas here. The truth is we have some rain in the forecast, so we might not really have a White Christmas, but having snow on the ground the week leading up to Christmas sure helps keep the Bah Humbugs at bay.

Last Monday my little town had their annual Christmas Parade. I love it! I think this is one of the nicest things about small town life. When I was a teenager living here, we had lots more parades... it's kinda sad that it's whittled down to just one, but I am thankful we still have one.

Our parade is about as small town as it comes. We have local groups on floats, fire trucks and beauty queens. And of course Santa, who always brings up the rear, riding on the fire department's ladder truck.

This year's parade sported three bands. My nephew got to march in the parade. I think this may have been his first parade. Made me think about my marching band days.

Uniforms have gotten so much snazzier since the late 70s. (Does anyone remember those God-awful Q-tip style hats we all wore back then?? Ours were red, just to make sure they really stood out.)

I like unabashedly celebrating our American traditions. Countymouse and I are such goobers... we wave to all the floats and talk to some of the parade participants. We have a ball.

(We are big fans of the Dave Attell syle self-photography.)

We've turned the parade into an excuse to have yet another holiday get-together. We keep it simple... cookies and cocoa. It's just a nice way to end the evening (and warm-up). This year I made the cocoa before the parade and put it in my Crockpot. Now I know you guys are probably not all that impressed, but at the time I thought it was genius. It definitely was awesome to be able to walk in the house and start serving. This is the recipe I used. We liked it so much, I'll be making it again.