Kraynak's- Santa Land

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 After playing some in the toy isle we reach the opening to Santa Land that the Kraynak's staff works on all summer. The first one about 1970 or 71, was very simply a display of decorated trees on one end of the huge store, then they added animated electronics. A family of white poodles in a basket that moved their heads slowly back on forth. The Holy Family, with a blond Mary, serene, in light blue, her head also motorized. They added music to drown out the motor sounds.
Over the years, a whole isle of many displays joined the store.
People used to throw change into the displays, but now they are asked by a sign to leave a donation at the end, that they give to local charities.

 I have only posted a few pictures of the many scenes delighting our
eyes. Some did not come out, like the purple Christmas tree. Others were blurry of the Peanuts characters and Bert and Ernie. I do love the trombone playing bear. Mary Ellen did not share in my enthusiasm. Right, she didn't pay five hundred dollars for her daughter to play a trombone.
The Coca-Cola picture is for my niece, Michelle.

This says it all for Christmas

The meaning of Christmas

 We love taking children to this display. They stand in awe or run ahead to try to see it all. When Katie was a baby to preschool, I came at least once a month as an outing. Buses of many special groups could be seen here in the mornings.
The Christmas music is piped in and beautiful pleasant scents filter in to promote the candles they sell. I liked the Gingerberry.
We wander and explore, spying favorite things. Penguins, Scotty dogs, colors, characters and old fashioned Christmases, thanks to Currier and Ives.
The Nativity scene reminds us that we still celebrate the Baby's birth.

Next we transition into the green house and the display of a multitude of trees tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Mom and new baby, ? Diane

Lewis family saying good-bye to Denise 1965

 Happy Birthday, Mom, Jean Evans Lewis. Pictures through the years. My post last year on her birthday. Now it has been four years since she was called to Heaven. I think Dad put Jesus up to it.

Dad and Mom, Pam Keck's wedding Oct. 1973 WM UP church

Sequoia's with the Galicia girls

Meagan and Mom 1983

Katie as baby, Grandma Evans, Mom, Michelle, Gabrielle, Diane and me

Me, Mom and Dad at my friend Terrie's wedding. Nov. 1984, New Castle,PA

Mom High Desert '90's

Mom and her older brother, Bill Christmas party 1978

Christmas after first walking again 1984?

Mom and Diane

Katie and Mom

Mom, Katie and Mary Ellen Riverview apts. Sharon, PA

Michelle and Mom 1978

http://missmolliesmusings.blogspot.com/2011/12/moms-birthday.html

Katie, Mary Ellen, Sarah, Meagan, Mom

Home

Wish I were better with the click and drag!

Kraynak's Part One

 Kraynak's, a family run store famous in the Shenango Valley and beyond. I believe Kraynak's started as a garden store. The building exudes that 60's feel. It is also huge. I remember shopping there as a child of six or seven. I could get lost there. Being a child, though, I was drawn to the toy department. My parents knew to look for me in the toy department. I was never lost. Well, maybe in thought.
The store still carries the kind of animals I loved when I was kid, playing "Animals." The hard plastic, realistic kind, but now they display so many more. These pictures are just a sampling.

Mary Ellen's favorite, kitties

 One weekend day, I know I was in first grade, my dad bought me the kangaroo couple. I took this gray hard plastic couple, with the joey molded into the wife, to school on Monday for show and tell. I loved kangaroos. I had forgotten that love until one day at the Pittsburgh Zoo, I walked through the then new kangaroo display and almost floated away I felt so incredible, thinking I was so close to these marsupials.
The other day we took a half hour to venture into Kraynak's. It is still overwhelmingly big. This time of year, you're wise to go during the week. The weekends, the line to go into the store stretches out to the parking lot, in all kinds of weather.
The attraction in the fall is Santa Land and in the spring is Easter Land. They decorate and set up these displays for months. Santa Land is dismantled Christmas Eve, so if you don't get there from September to December 24th, just forget it.
I'll write more on that later.
I direct everyone to Kraynak's for toys of all kinds. John Deere, trains, all kinds of dolls, baby dolls to Barbie and in between, board games, stuffed animals and these hard plastic animals. Also, candy you haven't seen since childhood, Mal lo cups, hard candy, popcorn balls. Kolachi sits on the shelves, too.

Rows and rows of toys

A child's dream

Remember paddle ball?

Why Snow at Christmas

As the low milky sun visits my window in the fifty degree weather, I'm amazed every year at how people marvel at the mild weather. I want to scream, "It's still fall in early December." Winter will come. It always does in the North. Maybe not as wild as some years, but we have a change in seasons. The winter solstice remains on December 20 or 21, depending on the time of all that solar stuff.
December of 2001, the forsythia bloomed. Last year and the year before, I saw violets in October and late November. The year Mary Ellen was born, 1994, an extremely warm December, made it difficult to dress a newborn. I felt guilty not bundling her up, but we saw seventy degrees on Christmas Day. I wore a red light weight skirt and a white and red blouse, but it didn't look Christmas-like to me. I still felt warm, thank you, hormones.
Some years, I have seen snow start in October and early November. Two years ago, snow came before Thanksgiving and we didn't seen bare ground until April. Then it was muddy through June because of all the rain. Fifty days out of sixty one in April and May of rain. Now, that was depressing.
So why do we think we have to have snow and cold for Christmas? Folk lore, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Clement Clarke Moore, Santa living at the North Pole? Or is it my idea about the magic of first snow, that symbolizes cleaning the earth. Our sins will be cleansed by the blood of this Baby born on Christmas Day. I don't think we realize this consciously, but in our spirits we are open to a new start, being a new creation. Is that why we want snow at Christmas? Why we are disappointed when no snow shows on December first? We're ready for purity, the innocence of Christmas. Jesus said,"Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Mathew 18:3.

Prophecy

I think I'm still a little bleary eye from so much writing on Friday. I love my posts from last December, so if this is uninspiring, please look back at them.
I feel I cheated yesterday, but I'm still looking for revival. I read a book over the weekend that left me pinned against the couch. I'm sorting through it in my mind and the Bible. I feel convicted. I saw how vulnerable we are by not knowing the Bible. If you know anything about prophecy, it speaks of a present message and a future message. The book is The Harbinger, by Jonathan Cahn, based on Isaiah 9:10, and the relationship to 9/11/01.
The most convicting part for me at the beginning was how I know I and many other Christians thrilled that leaders were quoting scripture. Many used this verse from Isaiah, but it is out of context. How many Christians knew this at the time? The day after on the Capitol steps. In 2004, by John Edwards, and in February of 2009, indirectly by President Obama. Most of us applauded the American spirit, the we will rebuild, our Yankee roots that formed so much of our rugged individualism.
Isaiah 9:10 is a verse of defiance. The country declaring they can rebuild without calling on or  acknowledging God. And have we not pushed God out of the public square? We turned to prayer in 2001, but soon fought to get it out of our public meetings, again.
I was mostly upset that I missed the use of this obscure verse from Isaiah. This was after the first attack on Israel by the Assyrians. They did not turn back to God. Several warnings. How many warnings must this country have? Will it turn back? I had no idea at the time about this verse.
If any one has read this book and wants to discuss it, please comment somewhere. If you have not read it, don't judge what I have written, until you have read it. Thank you. I would like to explore what it means to different people.

Read my post from the beginning of Advent season last year: http://missmolliesmusings.blogspot.com/2011/11/observing-and-wondering.html

It's Over

Whew! It's over. My word count didn't agree with the site's validation at about eight-thirty last night. Not just a few words, but about two thousand.  I added some beef to parts I had lightly written, when I thought, I'm almost done, until that validation told me otherwise. Still not enough. I think I wrote about four to five endings to get the count up.
I looked at that as a blessing giving me more time with the characters and delving deeper into their lives. I woke this morning, knowing they had been in my dreams. The song I had chosen as the love theme for the couple wrapped itself around me this morning, the Beach Boys' God Only Knows. It was like when I read a novel, finally ending it, I can't stop thinking about it.
I do think I'll enjoy living with these characters more as I revise and rewrite. I was just meeting them in November, after hearing about them for a year. I entered their lives in November for some crazy days of frenzied writing.
The other thing that is over today is the Hickory Hornets foot ball season. Our third trip to Slippery Rock University in that many weeks. The team played well, but the other team had been winning since they were in eighth grade. Bittersweet. I love the stories that go with the foot ball players and their families. Coach Brest supported by his wife. The aunt who stood and danced for her senior nephew, wearing his jersey. The mother who screamed when her son made touchdowns. The grandfather proud of his quarterback grandson. I shed a small tear as they exited the field to greet their families, but I love this team and their enthusiasm. They didn't get to be District 10 champions and move on to quarter finals without hard work and spirit.