Christmas Decorations Are Up... Lets Go Dancing

Christmas, children, is not a date.  It is a state of mind.  ~Mary Ellen Chase

Decorating Done (11/28/2010)... Time To Party

It's Sunday and time to rest so we started at Church (great sermon) and then decided to go dancing and afterwards go to the mall to see the big tree!  On a lark we called Vicky and Del to see if they wanted to join us and volia, the four of us headed South!

Time to celebrate as decorating is done
On our street

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The Breakaways did a super job

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This girl is ready to dance

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Bob and Sandy

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Line dance time for Del

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Fried Mozzarella cheese

Did you know? - Mozzarella is a generic term for several kinds of Italian cheeses that are made using spinning and then cutting (hence the name, as the Italian verb mozzare means "to cut"). Mozzarella is traditionally produced solely from the milk of the domestic water buffalo.

Time to celebrate as decorating is done
Santa has been here

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Twisting and turning

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Sandy and Bob

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We enjoyed the trees

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Smile?  What did Mr. Humbug do that we do not know about?

We Leave Dancing To Go To Fashion Island

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Cruel and unusual punishment... This is the Apple store and Sue told Paul he could NOT go in!
..... and we found the fifth long lost Beatle!

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Vicky spotted a treasure!

Did you know? - The lunch box, also referred to as a lunch pail or lunch kit, is used to store food to be taken to work or school. The concept of a food container has existed for a long time, but it wasn't until people began using tobacco tins to haul meals in the early 20th century, followed by the use of lithographed images on metal, that the containers became a staple of youth, and a marketable product.

The lunch box has most often been used by schoolchildren to take packed lunches, or a snack, from home to school. The most common modern form is a small case with a clasp and handle, often printed with a colorful image that can either be generic or based on children's television shows or films. Use of lithographed metal to produce lunch boxes in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s gave way in the 1990s to use of injection-molded plastic.

Time to celebrate as decorating is done
Through the window...

Did you know? - Lunch boxes have been manufactured using various materials. Typically, children's school lunch boxes are made of plastic or vinyl, while adult workers' lunch boxes are commonly made of metal, such as tin or aluminum, due to the greater need for durability. The aluminum variant was invented in 1954 by Leo May, a miner in Sudbury, Ontario, after he accidentally crushed his tin lunch box.

In 1935, Geuder, Paeschke and Frey produced the first licensed character lunch box, Mickey Mouse. It was a lithographed oval tin, with a pull-out tray inside. It had no vacuum bottle, but did have a handle.

In 1950, Aladdin Industries created the first children's lunch box based on a television show, Hopalong Cassidy. The Hopalong Cassidy lunch kit, or "Hoppy," quickly became Aladdin’s cash cow. Debuting in time for back-to-school 1950, it would go on to sell 600,000 units in its first year alone, each at a modest $2.39 USD.

In 1971-72, a concerned group of parents decided that metal lunch boxes could actually be used as weapons in school-yard brawls. With petitions signed, they marched to the Florida State Legislature, and demanded safety legislation be passed. It eventually was passed, and other counties in Florida adopted this legislation, which eventually was accepted in other states.

Time to celebrate as decorating is done
M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m bug!

Did you know? - Humbug is an old term meaning hoax or jest. While the term was first described in 1751 as student slang, its etymology is unknown. Its present meaning as an exclamation is closer to 'nonsense' or 'gibberish', while as a noun, a humbug refers to a fraud or impostor, implying an element of unjustified publicity and spectacle. The term is also used for certain types of candy.

In modern usage, the word is most associated with Ebenezer Scrooge, a character created by Charles Dickens. His famous reference to Christmas, "Bah! Humbug!", declaring Christmas to be a fraud, is commonly used in stage and television versions of A Christmas Carol. Famous Humbug of the actress/singer/manager Jenny Lind outside P. T. Barnum's New American Museum, New York City, 1850.

P. T. Barnum was a master of humbug, creating public sensations and fascination with his masterful sense of publicity. Many of his promoted exhibitions were obvious fakes, but the paying public enjoyed viewing them, either to scoff or for the wonder of them. If the word humbug enjoyed contemporary usage, it would likely be applied to supermarket tabloids and the publicity industry.

Time to celebrate as decorating is done
We walked over the Koi Pond

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All he needed was a white beard!

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We laugh a lot when we are together!!

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Vicky suggest Paul go get a mouth full of water and join the fish

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The Bobbsey Twins

Did you know? - The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of what was, for many years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate's longest-running series of children's novels, penned under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. The first of 72 books was published in 1904, the last in 1979. The books related the adventures of the children of the middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, who were 12 years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who were six.

Bobbsey Twins circa 1904
Cover of The Bobbsey Twins, 1904

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We love the various carts in the mall

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Del forgot his Santa list so we did not go inside

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Ear muffs were almost needed today... It was 54 degrees

Did you know? - Chester Greenwood invented the earmuff in 1873, at the age of 15. He reportedly came up with the idea while ice skating, and had his grandmother sew tufts of fur between loops of wire.[ He was awarded patent #188,292 on March 13, 1877. He manufactured these ear protectors, providing jobs for people in the Farmington Maine area, for nearly 60 years.

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Shoppers in action

Fashion Island from the sky
From the sky

The Tree Was Magnificent As Usual

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Reconstructed onsite

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Amazing reconstruction of the tree... We have watched it in th past

Did you know? - The large courtyard outside the Bloomingdale's building is occupied annually by a large Christmas tree. About a week before Christmas, every year, the tree is lit, preceded by extravagant holiday performances. The trees are taken from a private timber area near Mount Shasta, and shipped to Fashion Island in several pieces, which are then re-assembled using steel rods and a large crane. Since 1983, the tree at Fashion Island has generally been the nation's tallest.

FAshion Island

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Over 100 feet tall

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Straight up

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We found a lonely Elf... Maybe we will take her to dinner

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Good looking couple

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Del has a secret!  Why is he smiling???

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No! Its not Ruby!

Time For Dinner And Fireworks

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Sorry about the reflection but this was our view from the table of Catalina Island

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When you are old you need light to read the fortune cookies!

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One caught on fire

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Watch out the famous "Lemon Smile" is about to appear... It did my the camera died!

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We can laugh at anything.... Good medicine

Did you know? - As far back as the 19th century, a cookie very similar in appearance to the modern Fortune cookie was made in Kyoto, Japan, and there is a Japanese temple tradition of random fortunes, called omikuji. The Japanese version of the cookie differs in several ways: they are a little bit larger; are made of darker dough; and their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. They contain a fortune; however, the small slip of paper was wedged into the bend of the cookie rather than placed inside the hollow portion. This kind of cookie is called 辻占煎餅 Tsujiura Senbei and are still sold in some regions of Japan.

Most of the people who claim to have introduced the cookie to the United States are Japanese, so the theory is that these bakers were modifying a cookie design which they were aware of from their days in Japan.

Makoto Hagiwara of Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco is reported to have been the first person in the USA to have served the modern version of the cookie when he did so at the tea garden in the 1890s or early 1900s. The fortune cookies were made by a San Francisco bakery, Benkyodo

Good Night
Time to head for home and settle in on a Christmas movie

Movie time with Mrs. Miracle
Overwhelmed widower Seth Webster is searching for a housekeeper to help him with his unruly six year old twin sons. "Mrs. Miracle" mysteriously appears and quickly becomes an irreplaceable nanny, chef, friend... and matchmaker.

Proceed to " 11/29/2010 - Time For Disneyland and Dancing "