Alonda and Jim Droege: Christmas 2018

Greetings to all! We spent three weeks in Arizona between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everything was already decorated for the holidays.

This is a Christmas tree at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. It is odd to see cacti and Christmas trees together. The displays were very nicely labelled and they have a huge variety of desert plants (not just cactus). The views of the mountains and cities around the Garden were also excellent.

This is downtown Old Town Scottsdale. They were all geared up for Christmas shoppers. They had a stagecoach ride and a "Singing Cowboy" sitting on a horse. Great place to buy souvenirs and gifts.

We went to see a musical version of Miracle on 34th Street at the Arizona Broadway Theater. Sandee Donahue, Alonda's roommate at the University of Illionois, invited us to go with her. This was a dinner theater and the food was excellent. The production was very well done.

This is Sandee and Alonda. Sandee is retired and living in Sun City West.

While in Arizona, we also visited Barb Weaver. She was one of our neighbors when we lived in the condo in Bremerton. She moved down to Arizona about 10 years ago. We went on a scavenger hunt for life-size, bronze Jackrabbit statues with her in Tempe. In case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of Christmas trees in Arizona.

This is a giant Christmas tree ornament in downtown Sedona. We drove up from Phoenix with Sandee for a day trip.

Jim posed with the ornament, too.

This is the Wells Fargo Museum in downtown Phoenix. The museum is (surprise!) inside the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Phoenix.

The best Christmas-y thing we did in Arizona was to ride the Holiday Lights train in the McCormack-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale. We were originally going to ride the train during the day, but saw a poster for their night-time light show.

This is a full-size locomotive all decked out for Christmas.

This video shows how busy this holiday event was and gives you a good shot at the size of the trains (one leaving and one arriving). It really was an enjoyable ride! The next five shots are from the ride.

Back home, we went to see the annual Gingerbread House exhibit at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle. This is their 26th year and the theme was "Who-ville" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. This is a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. This house was about five feet tall and about four feet wide. They are decorated with candies!

This close-up shows the gum drops and jelly beans!