Let's talk presents, people. I have to say I love wrapping gifts. When I found out that kooky Candy Spelling had an entire room devoted to wrapping gifts I thought, "THAT would be AWESOME!!!!" I love finding cool paper, pretty ribbons and making little gift tags. I'll take fancy wrapping paper (with metallic embellishments or groovy graphics) but I also love simple craft paper with a little bit of twine. I get so obsessed with pretty paper that after xmas I skedaddle to the stores to scoop up all the sale paper. Among my faves are the Martha Stewart wrapping papers at K-Mart and the wrapping paper that Old Navy makes. For some reason Old Navy's is hard to find, but it's nice and thick and has cool designs. How about you guys? Have you posted any prezzie pictures? I'd love to see!
I grew up in Michigan but my family spent every summer in Santa Cruz, California (my dad is a professor and he taught at USCS, at their summer language institute). We looooooved going there, it's such a cool town and the campus is gorgeous. I have tons of amazing memories, but one of the most random ones is of a little place called Santa's Village. Santa's Village was a Christmas-themed, er...."theme" park built in 1958. The idea was to bring Christmas joy to children all year round. Kind of insane and yet....totally amazing! My brother and I were fascinated by the place (we would pass it on the highway whenever we were taking a weekend road trip) and would beg our parents to let us go. Sadly it was already shut down (I think it closed in 1978??), but one day they pulled over and we were able to sneak on to the grounds and wander around the cobwebby rides. My favorites were the flying Christmas balls (kind of like the Dumbo ride at Disneyland, only with xmas ornaments!) and of course all the little gingerbread houses.
"Residents of Santa's Village included Santa and Mrs. Claus, their elves who operated the rides and sold tickets. There was a baby petting zoo filled with goats, sheep, bunnies, ducks, deer and a Mexican burro. All the buildings were designed to look like log chalet-type structures, repleat with snowy roofs and gingerbread trim. The park had a gingerbread house, a elf toy factory, a lollipop tree and brightly colored gift shops. Around the village were tree-top tall wooden soldiers and candy canes. Santa himself had a huge mailbox to accept all the letters from children around the world."
Since I shared those retro Holiday photos, I thought it would be fun to share some of my own "retro" pics. It's kind of a random collection—most of the albums back home in Michigan at my parents' house—but here are a handful of my memories!
