It's Beginning To . . .

Look a lot like Christmas in many places with less than 2 weeks to go until the big day.

The Hudson Senior Center in NH where we're members is always decked out for the holidays and even more so at this time of year. Members, including myself, volunteer to put up (and later take down) all of the trees, figures and extensive holiday village.

Above are some of the 12 trees that are displayed in every room from the director's office to the lunchroom and game areas. 

Santa and snowman are in other areas of the center along with holiday signs.

A holiday-themed village is displayed on several bookcase shelves. All of the individual pieces were unpacked and set up and will be removed and stored the same way.

The center's resident senior, Maxine, is also decked out in a holiday outfit. She's always dressed for the seasons and holidays by center members.

Several Main Street store windows and restaurants were decorated in downtown Nashua, NH.

The displays in the windows of a local jewelry store features Wee Forest Folk®, which began in 1972 as a New England business started by Annette Petersen at the family farm in Concord, MA. The company produces a line of miniatures, most of which are mice figures and handcrafted entirely in the U.S. in Carlisle, MA.

Each mouse begins as an original clay piece which is hand sculpted by one of three sculptors in the Petersen family. The finished sculpture is molded and hand cast at the mouse factory in Carlisle, MA, then selected artistisians hand paint each one. 

These mice are tiny, but their prices are not so small as many have become collectibles over the years. The cost of some of those shown in the photos above ranges from a couple hundred dollars to over 500 for three in the Santa train as each are individually priced.

Crosswalks display seasonal greenery as does Nashua City Hall.

Thanks to freezing temperatures the past week, ice sculptures created during the Holiday Stroll on Thanksgiving weekend are still in a downtown park area.

The Parc de Notre Renaissance Française, a riverfront park close to the mill apartments of Clocktower Place was opened during Thanksgiving weekend after renovations of 18 months were completed. The park honors the Franco-American community's contributions to the city's textile industry with the centerpiece La Dame et son fils Émile sculpture. It now includes a walking path, seating areas, bike racks and a covered amphitheater for summertime concerts.

Christmas trees have been set up in both lobbies Clocktower Place apartments. The one on the left is in the building we call home. The one on the right is in the other building. A resident holiday party will be held tonight including a visit by Santa.

Decorations outside our apartment entry were done last week with many familiar pieces. The interior decorations will be completed this week. Holiday card writing took precedence this past week. Yes, despite ever-increasing USPS rates, I prefer to send cards in the post versus through text messages. However, I can understand that rising costs deter many from doing the same.

Your turn — do you decorate for the holidays and/or send cards?

Friday Funnies

This display of Halloween blow-ups was spotted in a store

Today, October 31, marks the day when Halloween is celebrated here and many countries worldwide in some way. Some in the Western world, the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK, have extensive celebrations with costume parties, trick-or-treating, pranks and games.

  Maxine, resident Hudson Senior Center member, is dressed for Halloween

Halloween is celebrated in downtown Nashua, NH, with lamp pole scarecrows along Main Street. I took photos on a downtown walk this week, some of which are shown below.

Other countries have traditions similar to Halloween that focus on remembering the dead, but with unique cultural spins, like Mexico's Día de los Muertos. Most countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, don’t celebrate Halloween because of religious or cultural reasons, also Iran and Russia which have restricted/banned celebrations.

Many residents of Clocktower Place apartments, our residence building, also display Halloween decorations which ranger from shelf size to larger-than-life size displays.

Some decorations include friendly-looking ghosts, akin to Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Other decorations have a more ominous theme, including the carnivorous pumpkin below.

On Halloween, it’s traditional to commemorate the dead in some Christian traditions. On our Portugal trip, we saw early Halloween decos notably at a hotel.  On November 1, All Saints' Day, Portuguese children go door-to-door with carved pumpkin lanterns asking for a soulmass cake. This small round cake, which resembles a shortbread biscuit, has spices like allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon or ginger as well as raisins or currants. Before baking, it's topped with the mark of a cross. Unfortunately, we left too early to sample one.

This year, Clocktower Place featured a pumpkin decorating competition with some unique entries. Residents will vote on the entries and the winning pumpkin will earn the resident a month of free garage parking.

There are 28 scarecrows placed along Main Street. While many are very original and creative, there are those that lack such features, which is why not all were shown in this post.

My particulate favorite for originality is this above scarecrow by the Nashua Transit System. It consists totally of transit system signage.

Full disclosure we don't decorate for Halloween only for Autumn with recycled annual decos. These will be changed only after Thanksgiving (a tradition from our childhood).

Your turn — Do you decorate for Halloween in any way? 

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

Hope you all receive only 🎃 treats not tricks👻

We'll be setting back time ⏰ on Sunday, Nov 2

Bloomin' in Nashua

It took quite a long time for spring to arrive in Nashua, NH, and it wasn't until late May and early June that flowers were seen in outdoor areas of Clocktower Place (CTP), our mill apartment residence.

This display is at the main entry as people drive into the apartment parking area. The mill apartment has two main entrances referred to as CTP 1 and CTP 1

This is the large flower pot that leads up to CTP1, which is our entry.

There isn't an entry ramp at CTP2. These flowers are placed in pots close to the main door.

These flower pots of colorful blooms are also at two of the side entrances.

Downtown Nashua has a lot of colorful blooms, like these at pedestrian crossings on Main Street. Most of the Main Street restaurants that offer outdoor dining have various floral arrangements.

Martha's Exchange is a popular restaurant and brewery serving lunch and dinner daily.

Surf Restaurant is a few doors down from Martha's, and specializes in seafood dining. It has been regularly named as the Best Seafood in New Hampshire. This restaurant also benefits from its location adjacent to the Nashua Center for the Arts and on show nights, there's usually a lengthy wait time to be seated.

Nearly all of the Main Street restaurants that offer outdoor dining have various flowers.

Red, white and nearly blue flowers are popular colors in many of the arrangements.

The city's Department of Public Works does a great job of regularly watering all of these flowers so that residents and visitors can enjoy them all summer.

Speaking of enjoyment, we celebrated 🎉 a special occasion yesterday — Patrick's 🎂.

His lunch time choice was to go to the Big One, a local family-owned ice cream stand for the lunch time special of two hot dogs, soda and chips capped off with a hot fudge sundae for dessert. This local visit is a once-a year treat, usually around the time of his birthday, this year, it was a timely one as well. 

That's because today, July 16, is National Hot 🌭 Dog Day, which is celebrated on the third Wednesday in July. The earliest known Hot Dog Day began in Alfred, NY, in 1972 started by two Alfred University students as a fundraiser for local charities and community organizations.

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) is an American trade association that promotes the hot dog and sausage industry. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was founded in 1994 by the American Meat Institute, which promotes July as National Hot Dog Month and October as National Sausage Month. During the pandemic, the council designated the third July Wednesday as cause for a national celebration. According to council statistics, Americans eat about 7 billion hot dogs during hot dog season, or some 818 each second. 

That's a lot of  🌭. Patrick helped this week but won't be entering any eating contests !

Local Fame, No $

In a previous post, I stated that a recent photo I'd taken that showed two swans in the Nashua River (before the snow and ice) had been used in an online Nashua publication, the Great American Downtown.

This weekly online publication invites readers to email photos taken around the city of Nashua However, there's a scarcity of those who submit images although some local photographers regularly send in amazing drone images. Alas, I don't own (or plan to acquire a drone).

But no need for a drone, as last week another of my photos was used. This one shows a partial reflection of Clocktower Place apartments in a former mill building across the parking lot. Called the Green Milll it's been used as a warehouse, hotel furniture store, wine and paint event site.The second floor is currently in use as a dance school. Since this is an old building, most likely the window glass is original and caused the wavy reflection on this straight out of camera (SOOC) image. This was a chance shot as we usually park in the underground parking, but had parked outside as we were going out again. (My last name was purposely omitted for this post.)

There's no cash payment for photos used, just braggin' rights, that's OK with me.

Many thanks for your comments on my previous post about the Wilbur Chocolate Company and Wilbur Buds. It would be great if you could grab a sample taste from the post because they are really good. Sadly, that's not possible, but they can be ordered online.

Speaking of sweet things, on our way home from our recent PA road trip, we stopped in NJ to meet our new great niece. Willow was born the week before Christmas 2024. She's pictured with us and her parents, Michael and Julie, our niece.

While In PA, we also visited my high school friend, Sara, and husband, David, also former NJ residents. As their Christmas tree was still up, we followed our long-time tradition of taking group and individual photos. Many have been taken during the holiday season or afterwards.

We're always happy to see good friends and spend time together. It was great catching up on all the time in between our visits. I hope you also have some in your lives.

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

Next week is my birthday; we're going on a unique adventure, 

Details in a future post

Here We Snow Again !

Nashua River snow scenes from our living room window

This past weekend, NH had several inches of snow Sunday overnight into early Monday a.m. Official tallies place the amount here in Nashua at just over 6 inches and due to temps that plummeted from the 40s to the teens, this snowfall was very fluffy. By mid-morning Monday, most area roads were down to blacktop, but roadway traffic was light as it was a federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr and federal offices, including the postal service, schools, banks and some business were closed. 

Instead of going outdoors to walk on snowy or icy walkways, my exercise was walking inside the very long mill building hallways. The main floor or 3rd floor, is a 1/4 of a mile, there are five floors in two connected buildings. In addition to exercise, the walk provided a look at displays outside the apartments of other residents.

These figures were the size of a small child

A campaign to create Martin Luther King Jr. Day began after the civil right leader's April 4, 1968 assassination. (A date that coincides with my brother's birthday.) In 1983, the holiday was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, yet wasn't officially observed until 1986. 

Why? there was resistance from groups and some states who questioned whether King deserved a federal day of commemoration. Since 2000, MLK Day has been recognized in all 50 states. It's always observed on the third Monday in January, which falls near King's January 15 birthday.

Other displays were quite smaller

Yesterday, celebrations for MLK Day and Inauguration Day coincided for the third time. (Please refrain from comments about this irony; it's not a political post.) Each time this has happened for a U.S. President's second term of office. President Bill Clinton was sworn in on January 20, 1967. President Barack Obama was sworn in on Sunday, January 20, 2013, but Inauguration Day events took on Monday, Jan. 21, 2013, MLK Day. These two events won't coincide again until January 2053.

Besides snowman, penguins and gnomes were popular displays

Only a couple of southern states, Alabama and Mississippi, have combined the holiday with Robert E. Lee Day to honor the January 19 birthday of the Confederate general. When we lived in Virginia, Lee-Jackson Day was celebrated as a state holiday to commemorate two Confederate leaders, Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The date was celebrated as a state holiday during the dozen years we lived there. It was eliminated in 2020 and replaced by Election Day as a state holiday.

In addition to shelf displays, the entry of some resident's apartments feature floor rugs and flags that included snowmen and also a moose.

There's no further snow predicted in Nashua, NH, for the 10-day forecast, but frigid temps are already here. This snow is expected to stay around for the rest of the week at least.

A few snowman competition entries

Currently, there's a snowman competition within the mill apartments with entry of the above creations. Residents vote online or by paper ballot. The winning entrant will receive a one-month indoor parking spot. If the winning resident already pays for an indoor space, that amount will be credited to his/her account.

Snowmen keeping warm in our apartment

While, this snowfall was less than expected, yesterday was a good day to be indoors, so a pot of homemade chicken soup was on the F&P menu. Today, Grenville is trying out a focaccia recipe, so our dinner is all set. We hope that everyone who had snow and cold temps are safe and warm — think Spring, 58 days away on March 20 !