Christmas Parade and Goodies

I decided to share my phone pics on Thursday.  If I can get it together, I'll show you what our home looks like at Christmas on Friday. 

At the beginning of December our small town had its Christmas parade.  We've badly needed rain, but we didn't want it at 5p.m. when the parade was scheduled.  All day it rained on and off, but not enough to cancel the parade.  Due to the rain, attendance and participation in the parade was lower than normal.  The parade was abnormally short--it lasted a whole entire 5 minutes!  We arrived at 5:05p.m. just as the fire trucks were rounding the corner to our town square.  We heard the sirens and saw the lights flashing.  We found a spot under an eave/overhang and watched the parade.  When it was over and we headed to the car, I looked at my phone and it was 5:10p.m.  I'm not joking.  The parade was 5 minutes.  The boys had fun but were a little confused.  I think they thought it would last a little longer.  We thought it was kind of comical.  Bless anyone who made the effort to still participate despite the crummy weather.

Here's a pic of the boys in the rain at the parade.

One of the festive floats.

Part of our town square decorated for Christmas.

This one is really blurry, but I had to include it because one of my dear teacher friends is the sponsor to this group.  She walked in the rain for this parade and she's 9 months pregnant!  Now that's dedication!

I just can't resist limited edition Christmas goodies.  I thought about writing the caption "Oh, no you didn't!  Oh, yes you did!"  I know, I know, I didn't buy just one bag, I bought three bags of cookies!  I'm so bad, but let me tell you that they are so good. 

Speaking of cookies, our annual cookie exchange is this Sunday.  (Can something be called annual if this is only the second time we've ever had it?  I'm going to answer yes.)  These are place cards for the cookies.  Last year we had so many different cookies that it was hard to know who brought what.  I made these cute place cards so we could label the cookies and give credit to who baked them.   I cut and folded scrapbook paper and used a paper punch to make the decorative edge on the white cardstock glued to the polka dot and striped paper.  I don't scrapbook, but I could see myself making banners, cards and signs if I had a Cricut. It's on my wish list.

I took these treats to a Christmas party last week.  The Hugs Kisses should have melted just a little more.  Super easy and tasty!  I'm sure you've seen this floating around on pinterest.  That's where I found the recipe.