Christmas Comes to Kenai

For the past two years, I have jetted to Anchorage with friends right after our Thanksgiving meal for Black Friday shopping. This year, I decided that since it very well could be my last Christmas in Kenai, I'd very well better stay in town and experience the local festivities! I'm so glad I did this! I got to experience the big craft fair held at the high school. A friend from Church actually asked me to work at the craft fair as "undercover security." I got to walk around for hours on end and pretend to be shopping. Really, I was looking for shoplifters. I never was too clear about what I was supposed to do if I encountered one; thankfully, I didn't have to experience that. I did enjoy walking around and looking at every single item at the craft fair... several times over! It was also very good exercise. I wizened up the second day and wore tennis shoes for the event!

Later in the evening, we met the Maws and Johnsons and crammed into the Maws car for the light parade. I just looked online to see what the temperature was that night and the weather page is telling me that it was 32 degrees! I don't think so! It was much, much colder. The wind was blowing and it was actually quite miserable. Fortunately, there was room for me to stay in the heated car with Ziya and Holly. The floats (I'm being generous calling them that) were alright. The kids loved them and I kept reminding myself that this is what was important! Santa appeared on a fire truck - this was their favorite.

Afterwards, we all walked the 1/2 block distance to the Visitor's Center where they had a humongous pile of wood palates for burning a gigantic bonfire. We'd been watching the wood pile up for several weeks so we were excited to see just how big the fire actually got. We were not disappointed! Where, oh where, was the camera??

Some of us walked to the coffee hut to get hot chocolate while Jacob and the boys played with about 100 other Kenai kids on a huge snow pile. It was like a city snow ball fight. They loved it. I got away as quickly as I could! After a while, we all met up again at Holly's dad's office for indoor box seats to watch the fireworks! This was also a lot of fun.

It was a fun way to start off the holidays. We got our tree and decorations up at home and we were all ready to let the joy begin! Oh, and lest I forget, I did actually get to do some Black Friday shopping... Soldotna style! Kaarin and I hit Joann's, Fred Meyer's, Gottschalks and TrustWorthy. Exciting stuff.