We're in the dark days before Christmas and besides being short, the days are gloomy and foggy and often rainy as well.
The late afternoon hours are usually the best when the weather clears a little and we can even see the sun set behind the coastal hills in the distance ...

                                   

Our local TV-weather-guy mentioned something the other day that I didn't know about: we're at that time in the season that although the days are still getting shorter, it's not getting dark any earlier anymore, that's at it's max, but still getting light later in the mornings until the winter-solstice on the 21st. Huh, interesting ..

To brighten up the doom and gloom (although I am totally OK with that but James could use some 'cheer' during these dark days) we looked for some fun holiday-events to attend.
And since every respectable town in America goes all out for this season we always find lots to choose from.

                                               

       
First up, last Sunday morning: The yearly Handmade Holiday Bazaar at the Yamhill Valley Heritage Center.
Entry was free with a shelf-stable food donation to benefit the YCAP Food Bank, so we brought 2 cans of soup and slowly made our way through the 2 large halls filled with over 50 boots of local artisans.



There was and enormous variety of all kind of holiday knick-knacks, all kind of woodworks, jewelry, pottery, knittings, quilts and many more.
We never buy much at events like this because we have no place to put anything anywhere but of course James fell for some brownies/blondies, he's a Hess, you never pass up any goodies to eat!

Of course there was a Santa!

After a quick bite to eat (yes, more food ..) we drove into McMinnville to our beloved Gallery Theater to see another matinee performance, this time we saw 'Chitty chitty Bang Bang'.

This adorable and ambitious “steampunk”-styled musical, based on the 1968 film (featuring Dick van Dyke and Sally-Ann Howes) of the same name with screenplay by Roald Dahl, tells the story of Caractacus Potts, a down-on-his-luck inventor who turns a broken-down Grand Prix car into a fancy vehicle for his children, and then goes off on a magical fantasy adventure.

As usual the show was a total feast of song, dance, ingenious decor and fabulous costumes!
Songs like 'Teamwork' (makes the dream work) and the Bombie Samba' and of course the title-song 'Oh hey, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang I love you', will be hard to get out of our heads for a while.
Another winner for the Gallery Theater!

Than, on Thursday, it was time for a visit to the Delphian (Scientology!) School here in town for their Winter Festival:
 

This exclusive, international boarding school is build on top of a hill above Sheridan and, although highly visible, is normally not open for the public.
I've been intrigued by it since arriving in Sheridan and have been waiting for a chance to have a look around, which is only possible during performances of their theater group or famous coir.

Unfortunately this night's performance was at 6.30 and it was already dark when we drove up the long driveway to the top of the hill from where you have a wonderful view over the valley .. during the day. This is the front entrance:

We walked around the entrance hall which housed the art bazaar for a while, admiring  various art forms made by the students ..

After which we were herded into the chapel for the main event, the singing performances of all the school choirs, of which they have no less than 6!



A wide variety of songs were sang, 'Carol of the Bells', 'Jingle bell rock', 'God rest ye merry gentlemen', and 'Here comes Santa Claus' to name a few.

One of the real treats was hearing the Varsity Choir singing 'The first Noel' and 'Jubilate Deo' .. so beautiful!
And the guest performance of the McMinnville Community Choir singing the traditional Nigerian Carol 'Betelehemu' was equally awesome!

Silent night was a sing-along song for which we all were given a little candlelight service candle which of course created a beautiful, festive, Christmas atmosphere

(Just to prove we were there .. that's us there on the left towards the bottom .. James in the striped sweater and me with the long hair and my butterfly clasp). See?

        


And to finish off this week of festivities we drove to Sheridan last night for their Christmas Lights Parade (no holiday without a parade!).
                                                             

Fortunately there was a lull in the weather and it was nearly dry for a change.
Anticipating lots of traffic we parked on main street and walked over the bridge to Bridge street where we waited under the awning of the corner cafe where we would be dry .. just in case:

       

We didn't have to wait long before the first cars arrived:

                     

But unfortunately, after maybe about 10 cars, the show was over!
No horses, no marching band, no entertainers ... in contrast to last year's awesome parade in Willamina, this one was an absolute dud!

I took some pics but really .. it looks better than it was.

At least the police car sounded it's siren and flashed it's lights and candies were thrown for the kids, but the whole event was over in 20 minutes.
Oh well, it can't all be perfect and it was somewhat Christmas-sy .. but we'll scratch that one of our list for next year!

Here's some candy we (I) grabbed (those Crunches are good!):

And that about sums up this week. I think we definitely did our best to get 'into the spirit'!
Christmas is coming and we're ready!

This coming week we'll be out of town for a couple of days.
Just like last year James will be golfing in Bandon with some of his golfing-buddies from Newberg and since they had a cancellation he asked if I wanted to come with him.
Since I can do with a change of scenery and Bandon is a very cute village on the beautiful Oregon coast, I decided to take him up on his offer.

I won't be golfing but I'm looking forward to some nice walks on the beach.

Fingers crossed it won't be raining too much!