Festival of Lights – Riverside Mission Inn

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Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn

Every year the Mission inn, a historical hotel in Riverside, CA, puts on a Festival of lights.  

They have 4 million lights and hundreds of moving figures on their building.  They also have a festival with roasted chestnuts, hot chocolate, etc.

Of course Christmas music is playing!

you can ride around in a Cinderella carriage!

these figures moved

yes they had reindeer

I really liked this tree

For more information, click here.  The festival runs until January 4.

You can stay the night in the hotel or you can also make reservations and sit under the lighted alcoves and enjoy the ambiance!

If you live in the Southern California area, I highly recommend coming here with the family.  It’s a lot of fun!

Hope you enjoyed!

I’ve linked up with The Scoop! Visit Confessions of a Plate Addict blog,Tablescape Thursday at ‘Between Naps on the Porch’, Wow us Wednesdays! at Savvy Southern Style, Open House Party at no minimalist here,Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, Seasonal Sundays & Oh the places I have been at The Tablescaper, and a stroll through life inspire me tuesday’s. 

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Favorite Christmas Store

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My Favorite Christmas Store… Käthe Wohlfahrt!

Today I am sharing with you my favorite Christmas store… Käthe Wohlfahrt. (say it like ‘Katie Vowl-fart’)

However, there is one problem.  She is located in Germany! Noooooo!!!  

Store front in Oberammergau, Germany

Store front

A christmas room!

Pyramids! 

Big pyramids!

a really neat lighted Schwibbogen

an even prettier Schwibbogen! Too bad it won’t plug into U.S. power outlets! (Or I guess good thing for my wallet!)

a neat lighted tree!

I had never seen these before, so here’s another

Nutcrackers!

Even more!

Even prettier ones!

I took more pictures but in my excitement in the store I had a hard time holding the camera still!

This is only 1 of 2 stores we went to Oberammergau.

Angel musicians by “Wendt and Kuhn”… Love these! 

can you believe this place?

This is her flagship store located in Rothenburg ob der Tauber:

Yes, it looks like this 365 days a year! I had the pleasure of visiting 10 years ago.

At the Rothenburg ob der Tauber location, there is even a Christmas museum!

If that’s not enough incentive to get you to visit her shop, look at one of the picturesque villages she is located in:

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

All of her locations are here.  Guess what?! There IS a store in the USA. But it’s in Minnesota. And I don’t know when I will ever be in Minnesota again.

If you are headed to Germany to go to the Christmas markets, here are all of the locations

So good news, the store ships worldwide! You can look through her online shop here! 

In addition to selling brands like Steinbach and Ulbricht, she also has her own manufacturing shop. Here’s a look at some of her items:

What do you like from her shop? 

I hope you enjoyed!  I enjoyed looking at my pictures again! 

I’ve linked up with The Scoop! Visit Confessions of a Plate Addict blog,Tablescape Thursday at ‘Between Naps on the Porch’, Wow us Wednesdays! at Savvy Southern Style, Open House Party at no minimalist here,Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, Seasonal Sundays & Oh the places I have been at The Tablescaper, and a stroll through life inspire me tuesday’s. 

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Halloween at Disneyland!

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Halloween at Disneyland!

Every year Disneyland is decorated for HalloweenTime!  It starts September 13-October 31.  I love going to the parks during this time of year and it is very festive!

Disney pumpkins greet you at the entrance

I like Minnie’s bow of leaves

Donald

the large town square pumpkin that lights up at night
even the plants are ready for Autumn!
They have pumpkins all over Main Street that light up at night!

Every year the Haunted Mansion gets a special Halloween-Christmas overlay themed to the movie, the Nightmare before Christmas.  Each year they feature a special gingerbread house in the ghost dining room.

The Haunted Mansion

 Out in the back of the park, behind Big Thunder Mountain, is the round-up.  It is very nicely themed and a nice quite area of the park.

vintage postcard

How cute is this buggy?

 They even have a special petting zoo.

a vintage Clapsaddle postcard sized to a poster

This greets you on your way in/out of Mickey’s Parking Lot

I like how the pumpkins above the Mad Hatter shop are wearing hats!

In front of the Mexican restaurant, it is decorated for Dia de los Muertos

More day of the dead theme

Pocahontas, the donkey!

The cute area behind Big Thunder Mountain

Even themed inside the cabin!

Another cute buggy set up

Aside from the decorations, Space Mountain receives its Ghost Galaxy overlay (they just change the music and the lighting).  You can purchase special tickets for their Halloween party and go trick-or-treating in costume in the parks here. If I had a kid I think I would go trick-or-treating here as it provides a safe-environment with poison free candy (unless of course the Evil Witch from Snow White gives you something!)  j/k about the poison free candy part, pretty sure that’s an old wives tale.


They also have special limited-time food offerings that involve pumpkin. 

I highly recommend going if you are in the area!

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Pumpkin Festival

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Pumpkin Festival 2013 at Ludwigsburg Palace in Germany

Every year the Ludwigsburg Palace plays host to the “Kürbisausstellung” (aka pumpkin festival).  They have over 450,000 pumpkins on their property!  No they are not just scattered about, they are actually featured as sculptures! One year they had a Dinosaur theme, a Swiss theme, a botanical theme, and this year, a sports theme!
*warning, picture heavy post*


Can you find the word “Sports” hidden in the pumpkins?

Skiers! 

She is lighting the torch, I believe

Yes, this takes place surrounding the Ludwigsburg palace property! Look at the beautiful building!

Ever seen such funny look gourds?

What about these ones?

A different look at the skiers

They also had smaller figures too.  Some of these seem like you could try to replicate them at home for your own decorating.

A working Owl and Frog fountain! 

Whoooo goes there?
This parrot was very cute! 

A bicycle
A horse of course

The swan and alpine goat thing next to her
entire boxing match! 

Jamaica has a bobsled team

This is part of the festival.  The thing on the left in front of the pic was a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophy winner stand that would play music when you stood on it.

They had rows and rows of pumpkins from all of the world.  What was interesting to learn was that a majority of the pumpkin types are from the USA.  

A basketbal player

Even a very large swimmer as you can see

I think this guy was my favorite

You can see white tents in the background with food

Not only did they showcase the pumpkins, but they had different booths with food featuring pumpkin.  We had the pumpkin soup which was delicious.  We also had pumpkin struedel which was also very good.

In addition to food, the day we were there they had… pumpkin boat racing!  I’m not kidding!  The racing occurred inside the large fountain in front of the palace!

The pumpkin boats. As you can see pumpkin boaters get very wet! 

go go go! Racing IN the fountain! 

close of up a very large gray pumpkin ‘boat’.  Never seen a large gray pumpkin before! 

More colorful gourds for purchase! 

Never seen these gourds, called “bishop hats”.

What was interesting is that they only had TWO jack-o-lanterns in the entire festival!  You would think with thousands of pumpkins they would have more jack-o-lanterns.  Guess that is more of an American thing!

If you’re curious about the palace… Here’s a view of the front of Ludwigsburg palace.  Can you believe this was originally built as a hunting retreat?  Boy, did those royals know how to spend money!!

It was just starting to rain when I took this picture… had to hightail it back to the car!

Ludwigsburg palace

If you ever make it out to Germany in the Fall, I recommend going here! It was a lot of fun! 

For those of you that can speak German, the official pumpkin festival website is here

The pumpkin festival runs from August 30 to November 3 this year.  

For more information about Ludwigsburg Palace, the English website is here.

Hope you enjoyed these pictures!  I have enjoyed sharing them with you!

Be sure to keep checking back, I have lots of cute Fall posts coming up this month!

Thanks for stopping by!

This post was featured at a Stroll Through Life!

I’ve linked up with The Scoop! Visit Confessions of a Plate Addict blog, Tablescape Thursday at ‘Between Naps on the Porch’, Wow us Wednesdays! at Savvy Southern Style, Open House Party at no minimalist here,  Feathered Nest Friday and Autumn Abounds Party at French Country Cottage, Seasonal Sundays & Oh the places I have been at The Tablescaper, and life of the party at the grant life!and the Autumn Abounds party


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