We had a neighborhood party this week. The twist for this party was randomly assigned tables — we couldn’t just sit in our normal groups. But no doubt the star for this week was Mom. Sunday, we took Mom to one of the local train gardens. This one was particularly nice because they had signs listing a specific item or setting to find. One scene was for people playing checkers, another was for a new and an old Ford car, and so forth. We had a lot of fun finding the scenes and pointing them out to each other. Plus they had push buttons that made the flag fly, or turned on flashing lights, or whatever.

That certainly is not enough to make Mom the star, so we next went to a concert in the chapel at Charlestown. We heard a group called The Suspicious Cheese Lords. They are an acapella group that sings ancient pieces with lots of moving parts. They put on an amazing show. The chapel is gorgeous, and the acoustics are simply perfect for this type of music. The included a couple of sing-along songs. For those, they used the organ to get everybody singing together. I was surprised at the quality of the organ.

For a capper, we went to the Catonsville Gourmet restaurant. It didn’t take much arm twisting to get Mom to pick a favorite she normally can’t get — quiche — and a generous desert.

I hope this finds everybody doing well and having a jolly Christmas.