Midwest Guest

Happy Holidays!

I love checking out holiday lighting displays, and the Big, Bright Light Show in Rochester, Michigan, is one of the biggest and brightest displays around town!

Big Bright is one of the brightest spots in metro Detroit these days with over a million twinkling LED lights blanketing Rochester's Main Street and as part of several animated displays.  

Regular readers of Midwest Guest may remember my Photo Friday feature on the Big, Bright Light Show earlier this month, but I believe it is definitely worth visiting more than once during the season!

I've been playing a bit with my own early holiday present, a Flip video cam, and, as promised, took a bit of footage in Rochester the other night. I thought I'd share a couple of my very early results here.

This show draws streams of traffic through town. Listen closely to this clip and you'll hear a talking traffic signal admonishing pedestrians to "wait...wait"!

One of my favorite displays is an animated show of about 70 giant lighted snowflakes dancing across the face of a former knitting mill building. The clip below hardly does the display justice, but I thought it was fun to see the synchronized patterns formed by the flakes in this display.

I've obviously got a bit to learn about video, but taking a bit of footage, setting myself up with a YouTube account, and learning to do simple trims of my footage seemed like good first steps.

Anyone have some good resources or suggestions for those of us just beginning to play with video and use it in their blogs?

Here's hoping that everyone has a beautiful and bright holiday season, and that the New Year brings better days ahead for all of us!

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Cleveland home to Father Christmas Tree

Celebrating Christmas in a cemetery may sound a bit strange, but the beautiful Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, hosts a special gravesite tree-trimming each year to commemorate the life of a man many know for popularizing decorated and lighted Christmas trees in the United States.

I spotted this little evergreen standing guard by a marker for H.C. Schwan when we visited Lake View Cemetery earlier this year.

The graveside tree is a nod to Rev. Heinrich Christian Schwan as "father of the American Christmas tree", although the serene setting belies the turbulent times Pastor Schwan experienced as he first introduced the beloved tradition of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree from his childhood in Germany to the largely German congregation at Cleveland's Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1851.

Christmas trees as a regular symbol and tradition of the holiday date back to 16th century Germany, and most of the earliest instances of Christmas trees in North American seem to happen in areas home to concentrations of German immigrants.

It comes as no surprise then that the young minister from Hanover, Germany, wanted to share his traditional tree with his congregation during his first year celebrating the holiday in the United States.

Rev. Schwan brought a freshly cut tree in from the forests surrounding Cleveland and, with the help of his wife Emma, decorated it with cookies, colored ribbons, nuts, and candles. A beautiful silver star tree topper the minister treasured from his childhood provided the finishing touch for that first Christmas tree.

Most of his congregation enjoyed seeing the tree and the happy nostalgia it evoked from past holidays spent in their German homeland.

Many Cleveland residents and the local press were not so charmed.

Newspapers described the church's Christmas tree as a "nonsensical, asinine, moronic absurdity" and scathingly characterized the congregation as "these Lutherans...worshipping a tree...groveling before a shrub", while urging Cleveland residents to shun those engaging in "such heathenish, idolatrous practices" and refuse to patronize businesses owned by the German congregants.

Rev. Schwan kept his tree up for a little while, but eventually took it down and threw his tree topper into the trash.

Emma Schwan found the silver star, rescued it, and encouraged her husband to continue the Christmas tree tradition.

The minister researched the history of the Christmas tree and found much to support it as a Christian custom to express the joy of Christ's birth in many countries. So, he actively educated people about the tradition and displayed a Christmas tree his church the next year.

Rev. Schwan was not first to display a Christmas tree in the United States, but most acknowledge him as the first to have a decorated and lit tree in a church. His efforts to popularize the tradition apparently paid off, because the practice displaying decorated Christmas trees spread nationwide over the next few years, even appearing at the White House when President Franklin Pierce displayed the first Christmas tree there in 1856.

Rev. Schwan remained at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church as pastor until 1881. He also served as President of the church's Missouri Synod from 1878 until 1899, and he wrote religious texts that appeared in Lutheran catechism books for many years.

Rev. Schwan died in 1905, but the tradition of displaying Christmas trees lives on in the United States-a tradition I love carrying on in my own home each Christmas season.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Shopping for a live Christmas tree at Michigan's Blake Farms

Shopping for a live Christmas tree always brings back childhood memories of going from tree lot to tree lot with my parents, the scent of fresh greenery, and carefully considering several candidates before finding just the right tree to grace our living room during the holiday season.

I've carried on the tradition of having a fresh-cut Christmas tree in my own home for the holiday, and in recent years, we've made the trek out to Blake Farms in Armada, Michigan, to purchase our tree.

Blake's may be better known as a cider mill to many living in the area, but I found out that they also sold Christmas locally harvested trees when I was searching for a Michigan tree a couple of years ago. We went out to the farm, selected our tree, got a free cup of hot cider as we made our purchase, and loaded the tree onto the top of our car for the ride home.

A new tradition was born that year!

Blake Farms is a family owned and operated orchard and cider mill established in 1946. The operation grew over the years and includes over 500 acres of orchard and farmland with crops like apples, peaches, pumpkins, and Christmas trees. Blake's was one of Michigan's first "pick your own" orchards in Michigan, so offering visitors a change to cut their own Christmas trees was a natural outgrowth of that operation.

The Christmas tree and greenery season starts at Blake's the weekend before U.S. Thanksgiving, when visitors can catch a wagon ride out to the Christmas tree fields to cut their own tree or check out the farm's lot with fresh pre-cut trees from the fields, wreaths, garlands, and other greenery.

We eagerly looked forward to the drive out to Blake's this year. We wandered the lot, drawn mostly to the several varieties of fir trees. We like fir trees because they seem to hold their needles longer, and their branches are usually strong enough to hold heavier ornaments.

We asked ourselves many questions about the various trees: Were they too tall? Were they too short? Were the tree trunks straight? Was there a branch on top of any of the trees that would hold my tree topper?

Halloween decorations still dotted part of the farm. A hay-bale face monitored our progress as a witch flew overhead on her broomstick!

We finally settled on a roly poly Douglas fir tree that ended up taking four strands of our LED lights to decorate, compared to last year's slimmer model that only carried two light strings.

A few minutes later, our tree was on its way to the shaker machine (to shake out loose needles). By the time I paid for the tree and collected our hot cider, the tree was bundled for the trip home and Tim was using his trucker hitch knots to fasten the tree to the top of his Mariner.

Living in Michigan makes it pretty easy to get a fresh-cut tree as the state is among the largest producers of Christmas trees in the nation.

Artificial trees may have their fans, but I like having a real Christmas tree. A trip to the tree farm is a great way to spend the day with your family, and I like that fact that tree farms provide jobs and income for local farmers with a recyclable and renewable crop.

Besides, it just doesn't seem like Christmas without a real tree to me!  

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Big Bright Light Show in Rochester, MI

Rochester, Michigan, is one of the brightest spots in metro Detroit these days with the kickoff of the city's annual Big Bright Light Show on December 1.

This spectacular display includes over one million twinkling LED lights blanketing buildings in the downtown business area and as part of several special displays like 70 or so giant lighted snowflakes dancing in sync with holiday music across an old knitting mill's brick wall.

The Big Bright Light Show plays Rochester through January 3, with light displays staying on until midnight each evening.

These are a few hand-held shots I managed get as we strolled the primary eight-block display area along Rochester's Main Street with the opening night crowds.

Everyone showed up to check out the light show, including this fellow I spotted going into a store!

We're hoping to get back later this season to shot with our tripods, and I hope to try out my Flip to see if I can catch some decent images of the animated light displays.

Check out my story at Urbane Reflections for more details about the Big Bright Light Show.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All right reserved

Bronner's keeps the lights on for Santa in Frankenmuth, Michigan

If you're looking for Santa Claus, a good place to start would be a small Michigan town called Frankenmuth, where Bronner's Christmas store keeps the spirit of the holiday alive year round.

Visitors turn off of Frankenmuth's Main Street and travel a half-mile side road, driving past outsized Nativity figures, Santas, and snowmen--before finally arriving at 25 Christmas Lane, home to Bronner's and all things Christmas.

Bronner's is nirvana for Christmas enthusiasts, but be forewarned that if acres and acres of Christmas displays and an unabashed embrace of the holiday's Christian character isn't your cup of tea, a little bit of Bronner's may go a long way for you. Still, it's something you have to stop and see to at least say that you did so!

Billed as the "World's Largest Christmas Store", the building itself looks relatively low-key from the outside (sort of a mash-up between multiple pole barns and Alpine-style chalets), but Christmas lovers will delight in the treasures held inside.

Bronner's is big. Really big.

Just how big is it?

The 7.35-acre building is the size of 5-1/2 football fields and sits on 27 acres of land.

A parking lot that can accommodate over 1,000 cars and 50 buses at any given time means you don't have to worry about where to park your ride.

Bronner's draws over 2 million visitors each year to shop and gawk at over 50,000 trims and gifts, more than 350 decorated Christmas trees, and more than 700 animated figures. Many visitors come from Michigan and surrounding states, but most months find visitors coming from all 50 states, Canada, and from elsewhere around the world.

Shoppers snap up 1.3 million glass ornaments, 700,000 feet of garland, and 135,000 light sets each year. You can choose from over 500 different styles of Nativity scenes, Bibles in several languages, or 150 different styles of nutcrackers.

The store racks up something like $900 in electricity charges every day, much of which goes to power as many as 100,000 individual lights that decorate the store's interior.

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is, of course, the busiest time of the year at Bronner's. Santa holds court for as many as 12,000 children at the store during that time, and as many as 50,000 people may visit the store on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Bronner's is one of the area's largest employers, with over 500 employees working at the store during the peak months of November and December. Consider the fact that the city of Frankenmuth has fewer than 5,000 residents, and that tourism drives the Bavarian-themed city's economy, then you understand just how important big Bronner's is to this small town.

Many visitors make a day, or even a weekend, out of visiting Bronner's, hitting one of Frankenmuth's all-you-can-eat chicken dinner restaurants, and shopping in the cute downtown stores or at the nearby outlet mall out on the I-75 expressway less than two hours' drive north of Detroit.

I've always lived within a couple hours' drive from Bronner's, and I grew up visiting the store at least every couple of years or so--and not just during the holidays. The store is open 361 days a year, closing only on New Year's Day, Easter, U.S. Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

I can remember several visits, when stepping into the winter fantasy land of Bronner's was the perfect antidote to a hot summer day.

I have many fond memories of Bronner's. I bought a number of my tree ornaments there, and a simple bronze-colored spire of a tree-topper I scored out of Bronner's sale bin years ago for $3, graces my tree every year.

The spirit behind Bronner's is founder Wally Bronner, a sign painter who parlayed his love of Christmas decorations and talent for creating displays into a Christmas themed business.

Bronner began painting signs as a high school student in 1943. He began his full-time business career with his 1945 high school graduation, establishing several different businesses before building the big Bronner's store on Christmas Lane in 1977.

Wally Bronner loved his career and remained with the company as the chairman of its board and chief ambassador of good cheer until his April 1, 2008 death at the age of 81. Bronner's wife Irene continues to carry on the tradition Wally loved so much, running the business with several of her children and their spouses, and keeping the lights on for Santa!

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Frankenmuth

Photo Friday: Time for Santa Bear to come out of hibernation

I really don't like seeing Christmas decorations or hearing Christmas music before the day after Thanksgiving, and commercial interests seem to want to move Christmas up earlier and earlier each year.  I always feel like Thanksgiving gets short shrift, and these days, the most commercialized version of Christmas seems to be even encroaching on Halloween!

As you can see, I love my Santa Bears and Christmas tree...and today I think it's finally fair to rouse the bears from their hibernation start thinking about hauling my decorations up from their basement hidey hole.

We've bought a lot of ornaments as we've traveled over the years, so decorating the tree always brings back some of our favorite travel memories.

Whatever holidays you celebrate this season, this year more than ever, I wish you the best of times and look forward to sharing your holiday traditions as well!

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Happy Thanksgiving!

I look forward to settling down in front of the television with a little breakfast and watching the holiday parades. Hopefully I'll spot my favorite Muppet, Grover, as I did several Thanksgivings ago when watching the televised parades.

We're not big football fans (we live in the Detroit area--'nuff said!), so we'll look forward to watching some Plymouth Whalers hockey on Saturday.

Thanksgiving is always a little bittersweet because it pretty much signals the end of autumn and a lot of the beautiful fresh veggies at the farmers markets--but it's always the real harbinger of the winter holiday season for me as well.

Here's hoping you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

© Dominique King All rights reserved

Tree recalls travel memories

I love decorating our Christmas tree every year.

We crank up the holiday tunes, bring up the boxes stuffed with ornaments from their basement storage closet and undo the knot of ornament hooks as we survey the ornament collection I began as a young kid.

Some of our favorite ornaments evoke memories of our travels over the years, because holiday ornaments are often the souvenirs I bring back from a trip.

We usually treat ourselves to a lobster dinner on Christmas Eve, ordering steamed lobsters from our local fish market and bringing them home to enjoy by the lights of our tree. So, when I spotted a lobster ornament in Newport, Rhode Island earlier this summer, I knew I had to bring it home to hang on our tree this year.

Northern Michigan is one of our favorite destinations, and I love visiting the Gwen Frostic store in Benzonia for “Up North” themed cards, wrapping paper, woodblock prints and other gifts featuring the late artist’s woodland-inspired work. When I spotted a glass disc ornament featuring a favorite Frostic chickadee motif, it ended up in my shopping basket and coming home with me to hang on our tree every year.

Lighthouses are favorite photography subjects for us, and northern Minnesota’s Split Rock light, perched high on a cliff overlooking Lake Superior, is one of the more beautiful lights we’ve visited. So the miniature yellow, white and black ceramic version of the Split Rock Light was another ornament that I had to have for our Christmas tree.

Little llama ornaments made from sheared llama hair recall a pleasant afternoon we spent at a Llama Festival while visiting Vermont a few years ago. I feel the soft fur and remember a “llama trek” we took the same year where our llama companions Tumbleweed and Toro accompanied us on a walk through Vermont woods culminated by a gourmet picnic lunch in a meadow as our llamas grazed nearby.

A miniature sock monkey reminds me of the Thanksgiving we spent on the road, searching for an open restaurant as we returned from a trip to South Carolina. We finally found an open Cracker Barrel along the highway in North Carolina, where we had a turkey dinner. I always wanted a sock monkey, so when I found a pair of cute sock monkey ornaments in the Cracker Barrel store, they came home with us to hang on our tree.

I think about last year’s trip to the wide open land of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas when I hang several copper cut-outs of sheep, horses and buffaloes on my tree.

And I wonder where the wide-open road will take us next.

Here’s wishing you and yours a glorious and blessed holiday season and the happiest of New Years!

© Dominique King 2008

Photo Friday

Here are a couple of photos for those who complain that the stores and malls immediately jump from Halloween displays to the excessive store displays often associated with Christmas.

Several touristy gift shops along the waterfront in Plymouth, Massachusetts have plenty of Thanksgiving holiday tchotchkes, trinkets, knickknacks and whatever on display. We saw this when we visited one hot and humid day at the end of the summer and stepped inside one of the stores to enjoy the air conditioning. You can certainly get your fill of ceramic Pilgrims and plastic Mayflower ships here!

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2008

Living history at Plimoth Plantation

One woman busily husked corn in the bright sunshine at the village center as another woman carefully crafted a bowl under the sheltering trees near a cooking fire at her home just a few minutes’ walk away from the cornhusker.

The common threads of caring for family ran through both vignettes, but the scenes at Plimoth Plantation were worlds apart in many other ways.

Plimoth Plantation presents a respectful representation of life in two distinctly different cultures. Modern Wampanoag and other Native Americans represent the Wampanoag living and working in Patuxet, while a cast of interpretive role players represent life in a neighboring 1627 colonial village populated by English settlers near the area now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts.

We left our car in Plimoth Plantation’s huge parking lot and took a short walk back in time to the wooded Wampanoag homesite. Signs along the trail urged visitors to ask questions and interact with the Wampanoag. The signs also gently reminded visitors to avoid culturally insensitive questions and stereotyping. This struck me as a slightly disturbing comment on the depth of the differences and misunderstanding existing between differing cultures, but these are differences that Plimoth Plantation strives to respect as the site educates visitors about the Native Americans and English settlers working and living there in the 1620s.

The wooded site and quiet industry of the Wampanoag as they worked in their home and gardens lent the site a sense of serenity, while the starkly sunlit colonial village and more vocally businesslike manner of the Pilgrims seemed to lend the village a more relentlessly bustling character. The contrasting character of each community only served to highlight a common strength of character that allowed both communities to carve homes out of a harsh land and climate.

Dusty trails led uphill to a fort that served as a defense for the colonial village, as well as hosting community meetings and worship. The village buzzed with activity as settlers prepared the harvest for use, maybe to cook in one of the settlement’s outdoor community ovens, and for preservation to last the harsh Plimoth winter.

Villagers acknowledged us and genially wished us “good morrow” as they continued their constant labor. Each thatch-roofed home in the village bid us to enter through open doors and see where the early Pilgrims spent time with their families, slept and arose to another work-filled day.

The Plimoth Plantation guidebook I purchased at the site’s gift store (yes, there’s always a gift store at these places, and I always end up with at least one book when I visit!) explained the site’s name. The spelling of P-l-i-m-o-t-h comes from a spelling used by early Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford in a history about the area. Seventeenth-century English people commonly used “plantation” to describe new colonies, or places they planted with people.

And it’s the people that make Plimoth Plantation come alive for modern visitors. Spending a pleasant day strolling through the 1627 village and returning the cheerful greetings of the industrious Pilgrims, or spending time with a Native American woman who showed me the soup she was preparing for her family and explained how she carefully maintained her cooking fire, gave me a new respect for the hard work required of each community to carve a decent life for their families out of the 1620s wilderness.

Postscript:

The Mayflower II is part of Plimoth Plantation, and you can read about our visit to the ship here.

The main Plimoth Plantation complex also includes a Crafts Center and a few conventional indoor museum exhibits in the Visitor Center near the entrance.

Museum visitors learn that the “first Thanksgiving” was really a harvest celebration, coupled with military exercises and diplomatic events during a three-day meeting between the Wampanoag and English colonists in 1621. It wasn’t until much later, in 1863, that President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday for expressing gratitude.

In any case, if you’re celebrating Thanksgiving this week, enjoy!

And thanks to everyone visiting Midwest Guest!

© Dominique King 2008