Don't you wish you lived in new england too?

Living in New England is quaint (And if the winter was not so interminable, wretched, and snowy- it would be even better) Don't get me wrong, I do like snow but I don't like winter that runs from November to April. At times NE feels so Norman Rockwell charming. Our little town is a quintessential New England town. We have orchards and dairys, lots of white churches, we have a cute town center with gazebo, antique houses, a white clapboard building which houses the town hall, fire station, police, and library (yes all in one)- It's a fairly sleepy town center- no stores. The biggest intersection in our town in where a 4 lane road intersects a 2 lane road- and the number of traffic lights in our town that I know of- 1. This weekend was our town's Christmas Festival, people even come from neighboring towns to enjoy our hospitality and cutesy town charm. They have trolleys that run routes through the town stopping at all the spots around our town where you can enjoy homemade food, crafts, buy local wares, etc. They stop at the local dairy farm (the smart boys' favorite), where they give out free samples at the "Milk Bar, tastes of ciders, fudge, cheeses, pastas, dessert, free hayrides through the farm, petting zoos, and you can even glimpse santa with this team of cows, the trolley goes to the Candy makers, the go to the churches, various restaurants, local businesses, artisan shops, and the school. The PTO hosted raffles, gave out free cookies, had a gingerbread competition, kids crafts, and a dinner that evening. I was in charge of major signage for the school events and the gingerbread area (if you were an elementary ed major at BYU you too were lucky enough to take an instructional design course where they teach you how to make posters with chalk pastels) I have to laugh sometimes at some of the odd but strangely useful required classes for education majors. (this also explains lack of blogging- as my evenings have been spent inhaling permanent marker fumes- in the name of the PTO!) I spent the days leading up to it making house labels, category cards, and posters, hours friday night laminating, copying, paper cutting thousands of ballots and tickets, hours saturday afternoon donning a hairnet and apron-and under the wise tutelage of E, the cafteria lady- cutting 250 brownies, putting ice in glasses, chopping mass quantities of basil and other fun tasks and help tally the over 900 votes for gingerbread house (although there were no hanging chads to combat- you'd be amazed at how many incorrect ways people can fill our a simple ballot)

Best of all we had fun as a family and we got to help celebrate the traditions and town "family". In our world today community spirit is becoming somewhat extinct- as we live in our busy worlds, our suburban sprawl, we sometimes loose the connections to our neighbors, we watch out for our own kids, but often forget how much watching out for and helping everyone around us returns benefits 100 fold.

And if you're ever in our neighborhood on our Festival weekend- it's worth checking out as a great reminder that people coming together as a community- well to quote Martha Stewart "It's a good thing!"