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I’ve never been one of those people who decorate every square inch of my home and front yard with Christmas decorations. It’s because I think they are too over the top for my taste, they are such a hassle to put up and take down, and they make the January utility bills go way up. I usually hung a large Christmas decoration on the front door then cover the living room table with a small Christmas tree and Christmas decorations and call it a day.
This year I did something incredibly radical. I decided not to even take down any Christmas decorations from the attic. To be honest I haven’t been feeling the Christmas spirit at all this year. I’ve lost seven people in my life starting with my mother and it continued with the minister emeritus at my church who officiated in my wedding, a former neighbor whom I still kept in contact with on Facebook, three longtime members of my Unitarian Universalist congregation, and a man who started attending weekly meetings of a support group for people who are separated or divorced at the same time that I did. The causes of death were multiple sclerosis, strokes, cancer, and diabetes. I don’t know what my friend from the support group died from other than I heard that his death was very sudden.
To suddenly have people in my life drop dead was hard enough but then there was the Coronavirus pandemic, which has completely upended everything all over the world, especially in the United States. Right now 326,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19 and there’s now a new mutant strain coming from the United Kingdom that’s even more contagious and deadly than the current virus.
Even though health officials are urging Americans to stay home this holiday season, many of them are ignoring that advice, which means there will be a big surge in January. Here I am doing my part to flatten the virus curve by staying home and there are many others who are still determined to celebrate Christmas their way even if it kills them.
Many of the usual holiday festivals and events in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area have either been canceled outright or are only being held virtually. Many of the parties at friends’ homes that I usually go to aren’t happening this year. Some houses in my area have continued with the usual overdecorating so I can at least briefly look at their work even if I’m not doing anything myself this year. Many of the local stores have the usually Christmas stuff on sale, such as these Christmas sweaters (where some of them are long enough to be dresses) that I found on sale at Target (along with a statue of Mario from the Super Mario Bros. video game series whooping it up on a pole).
If I have had young children living with me I would still go through the motions of putting up a tree and other decorations for their sake because after the strange year we’ve all been living through, it’s important to have some sense of familiarity, continuity, and tradition for the kids. But I live alone these days so I have far more leeway as to whether I want to even celebrate Christmas this year or not. I’ve been celebrating Christmas every year since I was an infant so I really don’t feel deflated or cheated by skipping one year.
But I do have one thing to celebrate this year. So far I haven’t caught the Coronavirus. I’m really grateful for that. In fact, that’s the only Christmas present I wanted this year and I’ve been successful. Since March I’ve been frequently wearing a mask, avoiding crowded situations as much as possible, and I’ve been vigilant in staying at least six feet apart from others. Many others in my area have done the same. I’m grateful that I live in a part of the country where people are actually taking this virus seriously. I’ve read too many accounts on Facebook and Twitter of people in other parts of the country not wearing masks and going to crowded parties like there is no pandemic going on.
And I haven’t been turning into a Grinch or Scrooge by totally ignoring the holidays altogether. I purchased a few Christmas masks—two of them from the Disney Store at Tysons Corner Center and the third from CVS.
I did my usual tradition of purchasing a chocolate Advent calendar where I eat one piece of chocolate every day from December 1-24. I usually don’t make a big deal about it because the calendars I usually purchase either has Santa Claus on it or a cartoon character. The one I bought from Lidl this year was incredibly elegant and well-designed. It seemed like this one was actually designed with adults in mind. Here’a a photo of the calendar.
The chocolate inside also tasted pretty good. That calendar is now in the recycle bin since I’ve opened every little door.
The one thing I noticed that’s different this year is that the local mall in my area doesn’t have a Santa Claus. Let’s face it, having children sitting in Santa’s lap is not the thing to do when there is a deadly pandemic going on. Although when I went to Tysons Corner Center on my birthday just a few days ago I noticed that this mall has a Santa but there’s a table where a child has to sit across from Santa in a socially distanced way. It looks like different malls are handling with the issue of having Santa there differently.
I recently purchased this device that is a combined alarm clock, nightlight, bluetooth speaker, and pixel art generator called Divoom. There’s an associated app with it and one of features include a pixel coloring feature where you just color a picture through the app and it shows up on the Divoom screen. Here’s the Divoom with a Santa Claus pixel picture that I colored through the app.
I even made a trip to Valley View Farms for the first time in a few years. There were some differences this year due to the pandemic. For the first time ever they only accept card payments.
They painted tree-shaped spots to enforce social distancing, which was a pretty novel idea.
I didn’t have to wait outside very long. The Christmas area is pretty much the same as before even if there were the occasional signs telling customers not to touch any items unless they intend to buy it.
I even shot an episode of my ongoing web series The Baltimore and DC Area That Tourists Rarely See that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
Here’s an interesting video I came across that is about the African origins of Christmas. Bigoted white evangelical Christians will balk at this but others will be fascinated by how it’s possible that some of the Christmas traditions we now hold dear may have started in Africa instead of northern Europe.
In the wake of the recent presidential elections that resulted in Donald Trump becoming the next President of the United States, there have been concerns about his antics, especially regarding his tweets on Twitter, where he has managed to piss off China and declared that the U.S. will be creating more nuclear missiles and possibly using them. There are concerns about how suitable he really is to occupy the Oval Office.
The Electoral College was scheduled to meet on December 19. Usually they tend to rubber stamp the results of the elections. This time a movement known as the Hamilton Electors sprang up and they were urging the Electoral College to reject Trump in favor of a more moderate Republican like Mitt Romney or John McCain. On December 19 these Hamilton Electors had called for rallies to be held in every state capital in the U.S. urging the Electoral College to reject Trump in favor of someone more moderate and with more experience than Trump. (Donald Trump is the first president-elect in history with no prior military or political experience.)
Since I live in Maryland the rally was being held in Annapolis. I had thought about going there to make a stand against Trump. But then I remembered that Hillary Clinton had swept Maryland in the elections so Maryland’s Electoral College delegates had already pledged to vote for her instead of Trump or another Republican. On top of it, it was a cold day and I was less enthusiastic about freezing to make a public stand against Trump when my state’s delegates had already committed to Clinton. So I decided to skip the rally altogether and do something fun instead.
My decision turned out to be a good one for two reasons: 1) the Electoral College decided to award the presidency to Trump anyway despite the Hamilton Electors movement and 2) I went to a place that I hadn’t been to in two years and it was nice to go there again.
I went to Valley View Farms in Cockeysville. It’s a long commute from the DC area but it’s so worth it because it has one of the most awesome Christmas shops anywhere in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area. Here are some photos I took to show how awesome it is.
And if you like these photos, check out photos I took of the same place in 2012, 2013, and 2014.
I decided to visit Valley View Farms on the day before Christmas Eve. (I guess you could call it Christmas Eve Eve. LOL!) The previous day, when I visited Homestead Gardens, it had been raining with patches of fog. When I went up to Cockeysville, it was alternating between light rain and mist and it was still wet outside. And the traffic was pretty atrocious between both the rain and the fact that Christmas was just two days away. But when I finally arrived and stepped inside, I began to forget about that horrendous commute and just marvel at the total Christmas fantasyland.
There were lots of decorated Christmas trees with each one representing a theme. Some had a theme according to color (such as all white or all gold) while others had a theme according to type of ornaments (such as all snowmen or all toys). It’s such a visual treat seeing each unique tree with a theme of its own.
Of course there were a lot of ornaments available that one can buy.
There were other types of decorations on display as well.
There was also a whole section dedicated to the Department 56 cottages.
I liked the message on this cloth dishtowel. (Or I think it’s a dishtowel.) As an artist, I’m pretty amused by that cloth. Unfortunately I have no idea if it is a dishtowel or if it’s one of those cloth banners that you hang on the wall. In any case I didn’t buy it because I have no need for another dishtowel and I don’t have space on my walls to hang anything else.
There were a few non-Christmas items on display as well, such as this banner highlighting the years when the Baltimore Orioles were World Series champions. I’ll admit that it’s frustrating that 1983 was the last time the Orioles won the World Series. The team is definitely overdue for another victory. There are times when I dream of an I-95 World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals. (I would face a dilemma on which team to root for if that ever happened. I grew up outside of Baltimore where people loved the Orioles including my family so I was raised as an Orioles fan. Yet I’m currently living closer to Washington, DC where people are definitely into the Nationals. I’m not going to think about it until it actually happens in real life. LOL!)
Before I decided to drive back home, I decided to brave the misting rain and take a photo of the sign in the back.
Despite the numerous pretty ornaments, I managed to stick with buying just one ornament, which can be seen in the last photograph below. It was one that I found for $6. It resembles the Delftware that originated in the Netherlands and it even looks Dutch. However, I saw a “Made in China” sticker, which was why I was able to buy something like this at a very low price. What I really like about this ornament is the flat base so I could place it under the Christmas tree if I end up with having more ornaments than tree space in the future.
A few days ago I decided to make the annual pilgrimage to the Christmas Store at Valley View Farms. On the way to Valley View, I decided to stop at the former location of the Sea Breeze Pet Center, which was nearby.
As some of you may recall, Sea Breeze was the place where I got my late pet hedgehog Spike a month after my husband abruptly walked out on me three days after Christmas, 2011. I did a ton of driving that day to clear my head because I learned from friends that my husband had hooked up with a woman whom I thought was one of my friends (but it turned out that I guessed wrong about her being a friend). A month before Spike’s death in September, I headed up to Sea Breeze because I happened to be in the area for a different reason and I decided to stop by the store to purchase some more food for Spike only to find that the store had closed for good. The Sea Breeze sign was still up but the store was totally empty. Yet its website was still online.
So I stopped by Sea Breeze’s former location to see whatever became of it and I found that the space has been turned into a health care clinic. The windows are now covered with venetian blinds so one can’t peek in them. (In Sea Breeze’s heyday, the windows were open so any passerby could glance inside of the animal cages and fish tanks.) So the Sea Breeze Pet Center is officially history. Yet its website is still online as of this writing and it still lists the address as the place where the health clinic is now located.
I didn’t linger long at Sea Breeze’s old location so I drove five miles down York Road until I arrived at Valley View Farms, where I was greeted by this large Nativity set.
Valley View Farms is a garden nursery center that has long had a reputation for having this giant Christmas store featuring ornaments and decorations from all over the world. The store has so many Christmas trees and lights on display that it is totally dazzling. Since I recently got my new Droid Ultra smartphone, I decided to try the panoramic setting on the camera in an attempt to take a wide shot of the store. I took three panoramic shots in different parts of the store. Even though it gives you an idea of what it’s like, these photos still don’t fully convey how big this store really is.
I felt tempted to buy a lot of Christmas stuff but I managed to resist because I can’t afford to buy too many things and, having gotten rid of three boxes of Christmas decorations last year and having purchased a small three-foot artificial tree, I really don’t want to begin accumulating excess Christmas decorations again. I gave in to temptation and purchased only one item—this really cool looking yellow robot nutcracker. It only cost $24 because it was made in China and not Germany. (The German-made nutcrackers started at $80 for a small 9-inch guy and the larger ones were priced as high as $400.) But it’s still a very funky nutcracker nonetheless.
I spent the rest of my time at Valley View Farms taking pictures of the various decorations that are available for sale this year as well as the outdoor light display.
This past Saturday was my birthday and it would be my first one since my husband abruptly walked out on me with no warning on December 28, 2011. My husband has largely avoided talking to me since then and I received no acknowledgement from him about my birthday this year, which is a stark contrast to my birthday last year (when my husband gave me both a new iPod Touch and a new iPad and he took me to this wonderful French restaurant for dinner). So I decided to spend this past weekend just going out in an effort to enjoy my birthday and forget about my husband.
Late Friday afternoon I decided to visit the Christmas shop at Behnke’s Nurseries in Beltsville, Maryland. This is the nursery that’s located closest to my home. Compared to Homestead Gardens and Valley View Farms, the Behnke’s Christmas shop is small but there were still some interesting decorations like the moose in the photo below.
The next two photos are of pointsettias in unusual colors and covered in glitter. No, they are not natural. The colors and glitter were painted on the leaves. I’m not sure how I feel about these plants. On the one hand, they are definitely unnatural. On the other hand, they do look pretty.
Behnke’s had a bunch of miniature plants on sale in a variety of decorative pots. One could choose plants like tiny pointsettias and miniature orchids. I thought they were cute.
I purchased one thing at Behnke’s. I previouly saw this during my visit to Valley View Farms but I didn’t buy it on that trip because I was about to purchase two hedgehog ornaments and a small nativity and I didn’t think I had enough money to purchase anything else. It’s a smoker shaped like a gingerbread house that comes with a supply of gingerbread-scented incense. I thought it was cute. I was also attracted to the fact that, for once, it’s not imported from China. This cottage is one of a series of cottages made by a U.S. based company called Ginger Cottages. (The link has lots of eye candy.) What was even sweeter was that the smoker originally had a $29.95 price tag but I got it on sale for $21.
The next day was my birthday and I decided to make a brief appearance at the Riverdale Holiday Market because two of my friends were selling their crafts at that festival. (I had the opportunity to sell my stuff there this year but I didn’t because this market is usually held outdoors in December, a time of the year when the weather in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area can be pretty iffy at best and I just didn’t want to sign up only to have it be extremely cold or snowing on that day.) The weather also happened to be nice and sunny with temperatures in the low 60’s so I decided to go there. As I walked over to the market, I saw this University of Maryland Physics Department van that had an illustration that made me think of the cover of an early 1970’s Pink Floyd album.
I visited my friends’ booths and I managed to purchase a couple of things. One was a Thank You card that was made by Archelaus, whose cards features the kind of designs that one doesn’t usually find on a Hallmark card. The other was this really cute and small nativity scene that was made in Peru. It’s really unique and the photos below show why I was enchanted with this.
It provides a nice companion piece to this other nativity scene made from wood in China I purchased recently at Valley View Farms.
Both nativity scenes are now displayed on the coffee table under my four-foot tall tree in the living room.
Nearly two weeks earlier I visited the really awesome Christmas store at Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, where I saw all kinds of ornaments on sale—including hedgehog-shaped ornaments. Some of them were made from glass, which I thought were cute and lovely, but I didn’t buy because they were a bit on the pricey side.
I purchased the two other hedgehog ornaments that were on sale. I felt that it was a great way of celebrating my first Christmas since I brought Spike home from the pet store just 11 months earlier. I bought two hedgehogs because I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. The left hedgehog in the picture below was made in the Phillippines by a company called Brushkins and it’s made out of bristle brush. The right hedgehog looks like it’s made from resin or some similar material and it was made in China and distributed by Kurt S. Adler. Both of them are very cute and they are currently hanging on my tree.
As for Spike, I had an interesting problem. On Election Night I was completely out of his Ultra Bites Fruit & Veggie Treats that I use as part of his regular diet and I was also running low on his Pretty Pets, which is also part of his diet. So I drove 30 miles to the pet store in Columbia that is the one closest to me that has hedgehog food for sale. The store was out of the Ultra Bites so I made the short-lived experiment on buying guinea pig veggie treats as a substitute only to have Spike ignore it. (I ended up making another pet store run a few days later to buy the Ultra Bites for Spike.) The store had the Pretty Pets but I found that the bag was more expensive than usual but it was the only bag of Pretty Pets left in stock so I bought it.
When I got home I discovered that I had purchased the 8 pound bag, when I usually purchase the smaller 3 pound bag. The problem is that Spike only eats 3 tablespoons of food a day so I began to fear that the larger 8 pound bag will go stale before Spike has the chance to eat all of it. So I decided on another experiment. When I ran out of what was left in the 3 pound bag, I opened the 8 pound bag and filled up the 3 pound bag.
Then I took a Hefty gallon freezer bag and filled that up with some more of the 8 pound bag. Afterwards I put a chip clip over the 8 pound bag. Then I took the freezer bag and what’s left in the 8 pound bag and stuck it in the freezer door. I know that bread can freeze pretty well so I’m hoping that it’s the same for pet food. I’ll find out in a few months whether pet food freezes well or not. Only Spike can make that decision. (LOL!)
Speaking of Spike, here’s a recent photo of him sitting pretty under his infrared light (which is why there’s a heavy red overcast in this shot).
While nearly evey year I make at least one visit to Homestead Gardens (which I did a few weeks ago), there’s another nursery that has a Christmas shop that’s just as grand as Homestead Gardens. It’s called Valley View Farms and I still have memories of the time that my parents made a family visit to that place when I was a child. As an adult I don’t go to Valley View Farms as often mainly because Homestead Gardens is closer to my home. A few weeks ago I decided to attend another session of the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School at the Wind-Up Space in the northern part of Baltimore and I also wanted to make a trip to the nearby pet store to stock up on more supplies for Spike. I figured that while I was going to be in the area, I might as well visit Valley View Farms so I did so.
At the front door I was greeted by this giant nativity scene that’s available for sale.
According to Valley View Farms’ Christmas page, this store displays over 125 decorated Christmas trees decorated with a selection of over 6,000 ornaments under a canopy of 50,000 twinkling lights. The result is a very bright and festive shop that provides tons of eye candy.
Each decorated tree has a different theme. The ornaments used in each themed tree are sold under each tree.
There was even a tree with a theme based on the rock band Kiss. I never knew there were so many different Kiss ornaments to choose from.
You know that the video game Angry Birds have become extremely popular when you can purchase Christmas ornaments based on the characters in that game.
If there were any ornaments most destined for the bargain bins next year, my vote would go for these ornaments based on Snooki and The Situation from The Jersey Shore, which MTV has recently announced that it will cancel after this season ends.
I’ve always loved looking at Department 56 buildings. I’ve never purchased one for myself partly because they are a bit on the pricey side and partly because I don’t have the space in my home to do a really awesome miniature village layout. But I like looking at them on display in the stores.
This year Valley View Farms had two unique Department 56 nativity sets on sale in two different sizes. They feature Peanuts characters doing a live nativity scene and both are based on a scene in the annual TV Peanuts Christmas special where the Peanuts gang put on a Christmas pageant.
I purchased a nativity scene for myself because it looked more traditional while, at the same time, it was very uniquely made. It’s a wooden piece and I just love the look of contentment on the faces of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. It’s small enough for my home and it’s a one-piece nativity set so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of small parts. Like many other things sold in America these days, this one was made in China but I think it was very well-made.
I also found some hedgehog ornaments at Valley View Farms, which was cool since I now own a pet hedgehog. Despite the fact that I had recently gone through great effort to downsize my Christmas ornament collection, I couldn’t resist buying two of the hedgehog ornaments to celebrate the fact that I brought Spike home to live with me nearly 11 months earlier. I bought two hedgehogs because I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. The left hedgehog in the picture below was made in the Phillippines by a company called Brushkins and it’s made out of bristle brush. The right hedgehog looks like it’s made from resin or some similar material and it was made in China and distributed by Kurt S. Adler. Both of them are very cute.
There was a third hedgehog ornament I saw that I could’ve purchased but I didn’t because this one was more expensive than the other two hedgehog ornaments combined. This type of ornament was made out of glass and it looked lovely enough that I took a photo of the glass hedgehogs available for sale.
The last few photos are ones of the parking lot light displays at sunset, which were pretty lovely.
So after visiting Valley View Farms, I made the short trip to the pet store where I originally purchased Spike back in January in order to stock up on his Ultra Bites fruit and vegetable treats and his cage litter so I won’t have to make any more shopping trips on Spike’s behalf before Christmas. (I wanted to avoid the increased traffic congestion that usually occurs closer to the holiday.) I ate a quick dinner at the pizza place next door then drove to The Wind-Up Space in the northern part of Baltimore where I attended another session of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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