Christmas Eve Recap

(written Christmas Day) Yesterday we took a drive over to New Market – more about the town in a future, summertime post – a little town with significant Civil War history that is about 15 miles away on 211, through a pass over the Massanutten range. We knew about some antiques shops and also had seen some antiques ads about the town.


We got there and found everything pretty well under wraps, all locked up, except for a nice little Christmas store that we browsed for a while – here’s a photo of their Nutcracker display. The store is called The Christmas Gallery, and they have four locations including this one. We picked up some ornaments for the cabin – a fat little Santa votive that made Mary smile, and some whimsical little nutcrackers on rocking horses (they match up with some ceramic nutcracker decorations on the tree in Alexandria, the first ones I ever bought).


Our next stop was down to Harrisonburg, where we found a huge antique mall. We spent an hour or so going through the place, which was housed in a recycled five and dime store. Some pleasant surprises in there, as we found some examples of stuff we have in the Alexandria house. Here is a shot of one of the ‘tableaus’ that a dealer set up. I’ve been looking for vintage postcards of Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park, I found one or two there I liked, and Mary found some of Long Branch, NJ – her home town.


Next stop was over to the Massanutten resort (http://www.massresort.com/), which I’d heard about and knew had some ski slopes. I’ve been wondering about the place, only a half hour away, thinking about good times past in the Harz Mountains in Germany – pubs and cross country skiing. Massanutten (or, as my friend Tony Orth called it, Massa Nuthin’) doesn’t get enough snow for cross country. It does have six runs, seven lifts, a couple of terrain parks, and several other all-season attractions.


I’m disappointed that they don’t have cross country, but they do have something I want to try – Peaked Mountain Express Snow Tube Park. This is a groomed area – looks like the golf course driving range – that is dedicated to snow tubing. A ticket for two hours of unlimited runs and lift privileges is $18; its half price on Tuesdays. Some friends from Alexandria have recommended this to us, so we’ll be trying it later this winter.