"Brigadoon" and Happy Finds!

Today was cleanup day! With guests coming for a visit tomorrow, I had to get this place in some semblance of order. Not only did I have the usual cleaning to do but I also had pulled all of the Christmas decorations out of the closet. These were still mostly heaped in one big pile in the living room...and another in the dining room...and one in the guest bedroom...ok...so maybe there was more than one pile! It was on of those times where good intentions just did not get the job done! Two trees were up, lights on and a few of the ornaments adorned the trees but mostly...other than the stair rails..the decorations were still in the "wannabe" stage. I had to kick it in high gear and get this finished!

One of the all important jobs today was to "build" the Christmas village! All of the lighted houses and little streetlights had to be put in place. That place just happened to be a long table in the entryway. The little Victorian people will call the entryway "home" for the next month. They will shop in the drug store, have their shoes fixed at the cobbler's shop and then make the short hike out across the bridge to the gazebo for an impromptu songfest! Sort of reminds me of "Brigadoon" since then the whole town will disappear for a while! "Brigadoon" just so happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies! Of course, any movie with Gene Kelly was always a favorite! But now I've gotten way off track of my happy find!

While building my village, one of the little springs that hold the batteries in the streetlights went sproinging away in who knows what direction! Just a hint here...never drop a spring on a brick floor...I don't believe it will ever stop bouncing! Now I was in a fix! No spring..no streetlight! That would have to be fixed! I started looking in the usual doodad places such as the junk drawer in the kitchen. Since there seemed to be no spring in the kitchen, I looked through some antique canning jars that now hold a variety of things and then found my "happy"! There in one of the jars was some old, milk bottle lids! These things are treasures! These were from the family dairy! My grandpa, grandma and whole slew of young'uns ran a family dairy back in the day. Later, my Uncle Quentin (we all called him Uncle Jim!) took over full operation of the dairy and ran it for many years. I have several of the old milk bottles but for some reason, coming across these caps just made me smile! It brought back a ton of memories..not only of the family business but also of Uncle Jim. In his later years, it was nothing to hear the "chug, chug, chug" of his tractor come up my driveway! He would either have cut me a load of firewood or if Summer, would be bringing me buckets of tomatoes or field peas! We would sit and chat for a while before he went chugging back down the road to his lane. I miss Uncle Jim..