Christmas In The Country. Christmas! Country! Crafts! Crazy? Yes.

Now that I have moved to the South Southtowns of Western New York I’m trying to embrace a bit more of the suburban life that is the buffer between our wooded countryside home and the city. This should be an easy task since my brother and his family live there. Along with my dearest childhood friend and her family, one of my best friends from college and her family AND another best friend from Buffalo who is living now in the burbs with her family. FRIENDS AND FAMILY EVERYWHERE!

But these friends and family tend to be crazy busy. Enter sad music.

I found the event Christmas in the Country advertised and thought, hmmmm, this might be a fun girly event to attend? Tis at the fairgrounds and has lots of crafty ideas which I know everyone is into…the event runs for four days, why not? I posted the link on Facebook and tagged each of the above mentioned peeps in the stauts so they would see it and waited. One of my friends wrote back and said it sounded like fun but this weekend wasn’t good for her. No one else responded…but then out of nowhere my step-sister appeared in the comments!

“What about your little sister?”

Hmmm. What about my little sister? SHE CRAFTS?

Enter my step-sister-in-law “She joins me on the craft circuit!”

A few private messages later and I have plans to attend Christmas in the Country with my sisters I never see, ever! And I invited my mom along too.

The show is the “Best Christmas Craft Show In the Nation!” or so they claim. I wonder why they don’t say they are #2 like every other Buffalo claim to fame. Anyhow…we headed out to the fairgrounds to attend for the opening day at 10am. Thursday mind you. Thursday morning. A cold, wet Thursday morning….and there was a line out the door waiting for tickets. A bit surprising, eh?

Once inside I quickly realized this was not going to be my kind of crafty fair. As HWMMS says it’s beach glass glued to stuff. Allentown Art Festival sprawled out over several event buildings on the fairgrounds. Ugh. I’m not even really a fan of the Allentown Art Festival anymore now that there are so many other local art events I can attend. I suppose my tastes are more along the lines of eclectic instead of angels and ribbons and painted glass ornaments. But we were there together and  that was all that mattered!

I noticed a few things while walking around…the place was overrun by seniors and strollers and not necessarily in that order or not necessarily mutually exclusive. There were lots of seniors in motorized scooters too! A group of women in line at the snack bar around 10:30 am bought glasses of, not coffee like I was going to get, but wine…at 10:30am. And in addition to all the seniors and wee babes…there were a surprising amount of middle aged folk as well. Which sort of surprised me since it was THURSDAY MORNING. But hey, I’m not working either right?

The event was far too busy for my liking. I was so surprised at the amount of people! As I mentioned not a lot of the crafty arts things were really my style nor did I get a lot of ideas for my own stuff someday.

One thing that shocked me was the severe shortage of penguins on the premises. Seriously, I think I counted maybe 10 sightings TOTAL over the entire event! Penguins I always believed were quite the popular choice but no, not at this event. Which was good for my pocketbook in the end but made me sad anyhow.

If you like crafty things made out of watercolors and flowers with ribbons…this event is for you. If you can afford a $640 glass sculpture, this event is for you. (My sister guessed $100 for the price…we almost fell over when we saw how much it really was!) If you like wood sticks with painted Santa Claus Heads from JoAnn Fabrics that you can paint yourself but never do…this event is for you.

Otherwise, eh…check out one of the smaller local artists ones coming up instead, they are everywhere. And God help you if you choose to attend this event on the weekend. If it was that busy on Thursday morning and early afternoon I can’t even imagine being able to get through the event center and seeing any crafts along the way on the weekend!