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McKenzie River: A Return Trip at ChristmasI'm back at Bea's for a few days, trying to help her sort out her kitchen remodel and deal with sick contractors, poorly stained cupboards, a delivery truck that left 12" ruts in the front yard etc. I don't know how much help I've been, other than moral support, but we've had a nice visit.I hadn't intended to write any more about the lower McKenzie River and its communities and sights, but I couldn't really resist telling you a little about Christmas. As you might imagine from Fall's decorations, Christmas is quite festive there. Many more houses and farms have decorations than had political signs. Old Red, the ancient flatbed Ford, is now decked out in red and white Christmas lights with three trees on the back, two live and one artificial. The lights on the truck are the mesh blankets they market to toss over bushes and cleverly arranged. The red lights are where the truck would be red if it weren't so old, and the white lights represent windows and long-forgotten chrome. Oh, and the wheels are outlined in blue. It looks almost ready to drive out of the field in the right amount of light. (We tried to get a picture, but our skills and cameras weren't up to it. Sorry.) There are quite a few of those new giant blow-up Santas and Snowmen, Snowwomen and Snowkiddies. And while I don't find them particularly attractive, they do brighten up the neighborhood. But much better, many places have icycle lights outlining the roof line, including in most cases the garage and barn (well, not the great BIG barns). Several have the whole house outlined, vertical lights down each corner, lights around the doorways and windows and occasionally also along the foundation line. One even has swag curtains of lights in each front window. And nearly all of these houses also have trees lit up in the yard. Many of these are the white lights which have become so popular here in the last 4 or 5 years but a fair number of traditionalists have the multicolored lights instead which I like better. They do it right here, it's not unusual to see 200' or 300' of pasture fence lighted too. Then there are the inevitable 20' long American flags in red, white and blue. I think they're up all year long. And since this is deer country there are dozens of made-from-lights deer in yards, not usually accompanied by Santa. Although we saw a few that were, and we even saw one set of reindeer bravely pulling a child-sized Conestoga wagon for Santa. Another interesting approach is what appears to be an elaborate set of lights, a growing tree that is decorated and a few deer -- all in the BACK yard of a house set fairly far back from the road. I mean, why go to all that effort just so other people can enjoy it? I particularly like the trees made of lights that appear to be new this year. The tree is either a light spiral starting from the top and spiraling out wider to make the evergreen shape, or vertical strings of light shaped into a cone. These come in multi-colors and seem to vary from 4' to 15' tall. At one place just across the river from Patsy's new restaurant, the rich folks have planted an entire grove of these trees -- at least 20 of them. It's quite beautiful and quite eerie, especially through the fog, which the river gets a lot of this time of year. While looking at Christmas decorations, we also had been seeing home-made signs along all the roadsides for the Christms Bazaar--Walterville Grange on Saturday from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, but nothing ever said where the grange was. On Saturday we decided to go to the Community Center (which has a sign out front) and ask them where it was. But when we got about half a mile away it was clear that the Community Center WAS the Grange--there were cars parked all up and down the roadsides and the two little parking lots were stuffed. (An interesting city-person aside: every car in the handicapped places had either a handicapped plate or permit. In communities like this, you just can't get by with parking there unless you need to, and everyone knows if you need to.) It was a really wonderful bazaar. The skills of farmers (well, farmers' wives, mostly) fishermen and a few hippies produced some truly outstanding bazaar wares. You could buy all manner of beautiful knitting, crochet and embroidery work. Bea bought several Barbie-doll outfits, hand crocheted and/or carefully made and decorated for $2.00 per outfit! (Oh, these are for her great-granddaughter.) There were pineapple pattern crocheted doilies for $3 and $4 a piece. But clearly this is a pattern this woman could do in her sleep. When I asked her about a piece for the top of my piano, she hummed for a while and then said, "Well, that will be pushing $200." Either she thought I was a rich yuppie or she didn't have any interest in doing it. Still, her pineapple doilies were the deal of the day; much of the other hand work was expensive, but fairly priced for the time that goes into it. There was just plain sewing as well as piece work -- table cloths and table runners, aprons, knitted slippers, arm-chair caddies, hot pads, Santa stockings, all at bargain prices. And a few tables with exquisite beadwork, blown glass and jewelry, NOT at bargain prices. But again probably worth it. Then there was honey and plum jam, homemade bread, cookies and candy. A whole table full of Watkins products gave a clue as to how those goodies got so good. The Christmas stuff was good too. I bought a stocking for my kitty ($2.00 including a feather toy and a pouch of treats) and a McKenzie River tree ornament. This is a clear glass ball ornament with McKenzie River gravel in the bottom, half-filled with water and with a fishing fly suspended from the top. The young woman who sold it to me assured me that she had sealed it well and it wouldn't leak. She also admitted that the water was tap water rather than river water and the fly was an old one (I wasn't aware that fishing flies got old, surely there's nothing less trend-conscious than a trout). She had to ask her dad (selling hand-tied flies at the next table) what it was. A Coachman. Not a Royal Coachman, but a Coachman none-the-less. I also wanted to buy, but passed, another clear glass ornament, this one filled with home-grown lavender. I also passed on whittled fish and pipes and gnomes, and felted wool Christmas stockings and the Christmas swags and wreaths, which seemed pretty expensive to me at $25 and up. I'll probably wish I had bought one when I get back to Portland. I also passed on some ornaments made our of teasel seed-pods. But at the end, I made Bea drive me back to buy some of these. They're very silly. Take the pod, turn it on its side and put a Santa hat on it, add some eyes and trim and paint some of the leaves on the fat end to make whiskers and then you have a mouse, maybe, or more likely a hedgehog to sit around and gather dust on the mantle over the holidays. I love them and so does my family. It was a nice interlude and antidote to the busy mall scene which I will have to get in the mood for a bit of to finish my shopping. My grandson nearly shamed me out of presents last year by sending me a card that said my present was a batch of ducks that he had bought for a farm family in Thailand. Oh, these liberal school projects! What is this world coming to? I don't care, I love to give presents. My last day here we're going to the Eugene Outdoor Market (which will be held indoors at the fairgrounds) Christmas sale. I hope to buy several unique and ridiculous things from the Eugene hippies who have always come through for me before.
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