More about Amish Country

My next stop is a fabric shop called Burkheim's.  It is a little out of the way, but really worth the trip.  It was made a "little" harder to get there this time due to a detour, which did not take me too far out of the way.  This fabric shop is just getting bigger and bigger.  When I got there, I could see they had once before enlarged the store and today they were adding an additional three feet to the one side of the building.  They have hundreds of bolts of fabric for any type of quilting or sewing you could imagine.  I picked up a few small pieces of fabric to work on the housewives (Civil War soldiers sewing kit) I am making.  And, then there was this wonderful wall panel piece with pumpkins and mums all over it--had to get this to quilt on this winter and make into a window warmer.  I only learned about window warmers a couple of years ago.  A window warmer is a small size quilt piece that you can put loops on the back and hang on your window in the winter to help keep out the cold.  They really are pretty effective, and there is usually enough light coming in around the edges of the quilt so you do not have to feel like you are living in a cave.

My next stop is one of my favorite museums--the National Christmas Center.  If you really love the holiday of Christmas, this is the place for you.  Plan on spending at least a couple of hours in this place to really see everything. 

You start out by seeing a family scene, done much like it would have looked in the 1950's; awh those memories of my childhood.  Then there is a large room filled with life size Santa's from around the world.  The next room is a replica of a F. W. Woolworth Store.  I am old enough that I can remember that store, and this one is such fun with all of the plastic Santas, original boxes of the first silver strands of tinsel, candles in the shape of 3" high carolers and bottle brush style wreaths.                                  There has been a recent change to the really huge Santa's Workshop scene.  It now has a walkway leading behind the scene where Santa's throne is located; this walkway allows you to get up close to some of the back part of the scene and see all of the walls covered in toys.   There are also room after room telling the entire story of a Tudor Town Christmas where all of the citizens in the town are actually animals dressed to look like the Mayor and the townspeople.  And, of course, we could never take the Christ out of Christmas.  There are more than 400 nativities on display and the last part of the museum is a life size walk through Bethlehem with Jesus in the manger at the end.

And, tomorrow will bring another segment on Lancaster.