52-day summary #alltheholidays #allatonce #lessonslearned

In 52 days, I feel like I have lived through an entire year of holiday activities.

Today makes about 52 days since we set up for our first Newport News Fall Festival in 3 years. Two years were Covid-related cancellations. 2022 was a weather-related cancellation. In late October, 2022, in lieu of the Newport News Fall Festival, we were fortunate to have been able to set up at the Historic Hilton Village Fall Festival near our home. It was an amazing time and I sold quite a bit of my inventory.

You’d have thought I spent the entire year between October 2022 and October 2023 leading up to the Newport News Fall Festival crocheting like a crazy person, right?

No. I did not.

*Before the festival began – October 6th at the Newport News Fall Festival, now called “Fall-O-Ween.” Notice my handsome assistant (a.k.a. hubby).*

Day 1 – I sold almost everything except for some old holdover owl pillows.

Day 2 – I brought out the “Plan B Inventory” of Easter Peeps, just to take up the empty space. We did manage to sell a few Peeps, but now I have to make more for Easter. (I’m rolling my eyes at my lack of planning.)

*Hubby took this picture of me sleeping on the couch after the second festival day. I guess the cat missed me.*

After the two crazy, satisfying, and busy festival days, I began to work on building up inventory of our second festival, the Hilton Village one day festival on Saturday, October 28.

*Knitting machine little pumpkins work up pretty fast.*

*Turtles – this one sold before the festival even began. Mental note: make lots of turtles for next year.*

After several weeks of frantic crochet and knitting, the 28th of October arrived. The weather didn’t receive the memo that it was to be a FALL Festival, however. It was a brutal 90 degrees. I got a tan and suffered from heat exhaustion. The foot traffic that had been non-stop in 2022 was significantly less. I can honestly say the festival was a bust for me.

*The Hilton Village set up. See my hand holding the phone to take the photo on the second table (poor planning there).*

The Christmas tree sold, but when it’s 90 degrees outside, who is even thinking about pumpkins or Christmas! (answer: pretty much nobody) BTW, the tree pattern is from mufficorn on etsy, the snowman heads and hats are available on Repeat Crafter Me blog, and the Santa was made freehand by me.

Halloween came and went, and on November 11th, we participated in putting up the Christmas light show at our church.

*Christmas lights and lots of Christmasy things, all programmed to go along with music. To see, stop by Next Level Church, Yorktown, VA, between now and Christmas. It’s pretty awesome.*

On the following weekend, fall decided to drop most of the leaves on our many, many, many trees. We love having the river birch, pin oak, crepe myrtle and pine trees. They offer shade and coolness in the summer. But we don’t love raking up the leaves. I even wrote a poem about them:

We love fall

We love trees

We don’t love

Raking leaves

Leaves were raked up just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday occurring the following week. We had family staying with us, which we always enjoy, so having the yard in decent shape to put up all of our Christmas yard things up is of utmost importance.

*As a vegetarian, I make meatless foods for my husband’s large family gatherings.*

During our family time, we try to do something memorable every year, and this year we went to the holiday lights display at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia.

Meanwhile, as time permitted, I continued to crochet Christmas gifts, and planned items on my list for next year’s fall festivals.

*Free pattern on the Spin A Yarn Crochet blog. Check it out, she has amazing patterns!*

This week is a short work week for me as my hubby and I are traveling to Myrtle Beach to just sort of relax. We will be visiting Brookgreen Gardens for their annual amazing Nights of a Thousand Candles – it’s the best garden light experience I have ever seen. We have family in South Carolina also so we may plan a short visit to see them. And as an added bonus, I will likely take a million photos from the trip and will share them with you in a post next time.

Until then,

Kim

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