01.01.70

Published on December 25, 2012

From Staff Reports

Christmas traditions in Frederick County are as unique as individual snowflakes. For many families, traditions reach back generations and embrace rituals rooted in other countries.

Below are snapshots of how some of your friends and neighbors celebrate this holiday season.

Nativity scene is tradition for Thurmont resident

Emily Little has set up the Nativity scene in her grandparents' home for 12 years. Each year, her grandmother, Darlene Clem, takes a photo of Emily with the scene. The tradition began when Emily was 4.

"The manger and all its pieces belonged to my mother, so they are well over 75 years old," said Clem. "Same pieces, same people, animals. An additional angel was added, because that, too, was my mother's. The only damage was to the cow's neck, which broke and had to be glued back together.

Source: Frederick News Post (subscription)

by IHE Staff

When we moved in to our house five years ago all the walls were white. Not being the home improvement types, all the walls are still white five years later, only very dirty now. It’s beginning to weigh on my soul. So now the walls in the bathroom are harbor (I considered cathedral, running river, and magical evening, but decided to go with harbor).  One of my sons thinks their bedroom would look nice with a color called “the queen’s robes.” I think maybe we should go with iced mint. But after yesterday, I don’t think I want to paint another room at least for a while. I was also taken yesterday with the desire to give all our possessions to Goodwill. This isn’t as surprising. I have this urge every now and then. The possessions weigh on my soul even more than the dirty walls. Why, for instance, do we have an angel food cake pan that belonged to Grandma Ollie before she died twenty years ago?...

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by bespoken

Today is my husband’s golden birthday: he is twenty-six on the twenty-sixth.  I think this is awesome.  I remember my own golden birthday, when I turned twenty-three on the twenty-third…and Easter happened to fall on the twenty-third of March that year, which is extremely rare…so it was Easter and my golden birthday all together.  Pretty exciting.  But I am selfishly digressing.  Today is Z’s special golden day.  Happy Birthday, Dinosaur.

So far we have celebrated with donuts for breakfast, bacon cheeseburgers at Five Guys, an afternoon spent picking out seeds for our planned garden (and planting them in pots), and chatting with family via Google+.  Right now, I have a cake in the oven baking.  (Z picked out yellow cake with fudge filling and frosting.)  In about twenty minutes, I’ll pull the cake pans out of the oven and let the layers cool while we make some omelettes with sausage.  Then the fudge frosting!  And then, perhaps Z will eat cake with no hands… I have pictures from just such an occasion five years ago when we were living in Oxford.

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