December is a very busy month for our family. At the market we are busy preparing for the beginning of strawberry shortcake season, processing gift fruit orders for our customers in the north and sending Christmas packages for our customers. Wondering why I said shortcake season and not strawberry season? That’s because Bobby, Matt and Peggy Parke are responsible for our beautiful and sweet berries. They are the ones who are busy planting, growing, picking and delivering their yummy Parkesdale berries to our market every day, multiple times a day! And we are forever grateful to them.
At home, we are equally busy with school performances and our annual visit to Christmas Lane in Dover. This week we visited Walden Lake Elementary’s Kindergarten class Holiday Performance. Piper was a sheep. If you know her, she’s not at all sheepish. Although, she might try to convince you otherwise. See if you can spot her.
Another Christmas tradition is visiting Christmas Lane in Dover with Grandma Parke. We’ve been going there ever since we moved to Plant City in 2009. And every year, the girls enjoy it more and more.
The set up is practically the same each year, but they also switch it up every year to add new decorations. Most importantly, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are always there through December 23rd from 6-8pm and December 24th from 6-7 pm.
This year we found out about the City of Winter Haven’s Snow Central Event through their Facebook page. They had 70 tons of snow, free hot cocoa, jump houses, Home Depot workshop for the kids and Santa. It’s about an hour drive from our house, but I have to say that it was worth it. We waited about 45 minutes in line to play in the snow. The girls have not seen real snow so this was a treat for them.
We walked around and enjoyed the jump houses while listening to a live DJ playing Christmas music. The girls hula hooped for a while and we had some hot cocoa with gingerbread cookies. We still have to build our Gingerbread house!
What fun Christmas family traditions do you look forward to?
