Family Thanksgiving in North Conway, New Hampshire

 All right, so the pictures are a bit out of order, but we'll try to do our best.  This is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we had had a wonderful meal cooked by Paul and Deb.  I was most impressed at breakfast because Paul had smoked the bacon.  Wow! was that ever good!  He did not laugh when I asked him how he kept it lit.  (The other food smoker I know had laughed.  Oh well.  One out of two.)

Below is as we walked across the park to the tree on the far right.  The kids are ice skating (in their shoes) on a puddle.  To the left and out of sight is the framework for the Town skating rink which had not been filled yet.

This guy (below) was wagging his tail in time to the music when the singers began.

And here are the a capella singers.  They were quite good even though it was quite chilly.

 We, however, were dressed for the cold!

Below is the sidewalk side of the park.  The train station is on the left, out of sight.

Thank you, Paul, for taking pictures of us!  The North Conway train station is on the left and the Holiday Special train left during the singing, blowing it's whistle during "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."

Another shot of the singers before the tree lighting.

Here is a full shot of the picturesque train station.

Below are two shots of the sidewalk opposite the train station.  The stores flank the church and after the lighting, we did a stroll down the street and into some of the shops.  It was very crowded, so we didn't stay too long.

And here is the fully lit tree!

We also made a trip to the stove shop in North Conway.

I was very surprised to see that the pots people put on top of a wood burning stove (to evaporate water into the air) have become an art form.  Below is my favorite: a fire breathing dragon.  The picture doesn't do justice to it because it's over exposed.  Sunlight was streaming in all of the windows.

I thought this stove above is gorgeous.  Although, I never want an actual wood stove because they are too much work for me.  But I would love an electric one that looks like this!

If I remember correctly, those bags contain fat wood.  We found out (Emily and I) that it's high resin wood, treated with something that makes it fat.  I wonder if in the old days, people actually added fat.  Maybe not.

And, Deb took us to the famous North Conway outlet stores.  It was so crowded, I decided to show you the packed parking lot on the side where we entered.  I knew I'd never get a shot of the clustered shops because there were so many people.

We all managed to buy some things.  Look at the size of the line behind Deb.  We were waiting for Emily to try her purchases on so by the time Deb got to the register, the line of people waiting to pay had doubled again to about 20 people waiting.  (There were five cashiers.)

And that was our fabulous Thanksgiving in North Conway, NH!  Thanks, Deb and Paul!