Christmas at Kügler Haus 2024

  December 11, 2001 we moved to this house in East Tennessee.  We have been here a little over twenty-three years now.  We love it more every passing year.    East Tennessee is a lot like where we came from in Virginia.   It is just further south and a little milder.   We have finished raising our children here.   They have begun their own families and made us grandparents.   We are blessed! 

  We have found ourselves at home in the middle of the Bible Belt.   We celebrated our first Christmas here all those years ago.   I believe it gets better each year.   I married Santa Claus.  Kenny is the sweetest, most generous person  you could ever hope to meet. He loves Christmas and every year says he's going to scale back only to have our house looking like Santa wrecked his sleigh here again. 

Here are a few images from what Christmas is like this year.   

       

 Below:   Got most of the stockings up in the kitchen side of the fireplace this year.   I love having a fire. It is so cozy. 

Below:  near Christmas Papaw Kenny's work sometimes slows down a bit and we can get out for fun excursions together.  Here is Mia, our 4 year old granddaughter coloring at Calhoun's.  She asked to go there for lunch one day so we were able to make that happen.   She says her favorite Calhoun's is the one in Gatlinburg.  

Below grandson Gabriel age 8 by the fire at Calhoun's in Pigeon Forge.  My Christmas surprise this year was this handsome little man learning to eat and LOVE broccoli!   He has been a sensory processing disorder kid.  I've taken him for feeding therapy for more than a year.   It is slow progress, but lately he has improved by leaps and bounds!  

Below:  We made a visit to the Village Garden Center in Fishersville, Va. while there for Thanksgiving.  I used to take my kids there to see the pretty decorations and let them pick out their own ornament each year.   It is neat that this year my grandchildren got to go there with us and their parents. 

Below:  gingerbread house candle holder from Ross in Waynesboro and the ceramic light up Christmas tree from Village Garden Center. 

Below:  Papaw Kenny, Gabriel and Mia at Heritage High School's Holiday Village.2nd year of doing this.  

Below: Mia helped me decorate the tree downstairs.  I bought a new tree topper bow for it this year and a new garland that looks like peppermints strung together. 

Above: Tree is finished.  

Above:  King and Queen of Bad Timing... Kenny and I decided it was time to rip out carpet in the downstairs family room and replace it with laminate floor.  Kenny did a beautiful job of it. Jared helped. I helped a little.   It looks amazing and is so much cleaner. 

Above: real greenery wreath from Food City along with a bow I bought at Village Garden Center.  

Above:  little blue point juniper out front on the steps.

Above: Mia wanted lights outside this year so we obliged her.   I have a set of those retro lights that are exactly like the one's my grandparents put up each Christmas!  They are huge.  

Above:  chex party mix ... I made a roaster full and it all got gone quickly.  I gave it away as gifts. 

Above:  our black mama cat Bakoogan plots her revenge on Kenny. She is highly annoyed with him because he stopped her from being able to get into the ceiling in the downstairs.  LOL...😄

Above: My father in law's old cream can from when Kenny was a child.  His dad died when he was 8.. .the age Gabe is now.   The cream can says E. O. Koogler and was from a cream sample he entered into the state fair competition.   He was a farmer.  

Above: I wanted a tree upstairs too.   We visited the Christmas KARM store. If you have never done this you should! This year it was on Clinton Highway.   We got this fully prelit, flocked tree for $65!

It was so much fun seeing all the pretty decorations and getting some fantastic deals.  

Above and below:  ornaments on the new upstairs tree. 

  We are supposed to have been experiencing a La Nina Winter.  Milder and drier.  bah ha ha!  I think they guessed wrong.  It has been damp, rainy, snowy and cold.   Thankfully the rain has replenished the rivers and got the waterfalls flowing once again.  

Below:  

I made sausage cheese balls today for the first time in years. 

 

  I will add to this page as I have more photos or new events unfold.