From all of us to all of you, we hope your holidays are merry and bright!
Happy 2015 from your friends at Merrill Gardens at First Hill!
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Monday, December 15, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Happy Holidays from Craig!
Hello
friends and family of Merrill Gardens at First Hill,
Can
you believe it? It is December already, the last month of the year. Soon 2014 will
be over and we’ll be sailing forth into 2015! I am already very tired of
hearing there are only “so many shopping days left” until Christmas!
Wherever
did 2014 go? I honestly feel as though this year just flew by faster than a
Canadian goose on its way south! Who knew time could fly by so quickly?!
Now
the holiday season is upon us. I remember the first time that my grandmother
taught me to make, bake, and frost all kinds of Christmas cookies. The year was
1962, and I was just 10 years old - Grandma said she needed a little “Christmas
elf helper” in her farmhouse kitchen. Oh, the memories come flooding back of a
cozy, warm, yellow farmhouse kitchen with the logs crackling in the fireplace.
Grandma in her apron with her big mixing bowl in her lap, and the Wisconsin
snow swirling outside - adding to the already 3 feet of snow on the ground and
the temperature hovering around 10 degrees above zero! The house smelled so
wonderful and was filled inside with cedar boughs over all of the windows and
doors and our 10-foot blue spruce Christmas tree, all decorated with the family
ornaments handed down through the generations - many of which I still have on
my tree to this very day.
That
Christmas of 1962, I learned how to make Grandma’s famous sugar cookie dough,
how to bake them without burning the bottom, and how to frost them and decorate
them with multi-colored sprinkles, red hot dots, and colored crystal sugar dust
to make each cookie a work of art. Grandma also taught me to make Coconut Logs
with figs and Rice Krispies, date-filled cookies, Sunbuckles (a pure sugar and
farm butter cookie – part of our Norwegian/Swiss heritage), rosette cookies - deep
fried and then dusted with powdered sugar - spritz cookies, and about 12 other
different kinds of festive cookies for the season. You see, Grandma loved a
variety of cookies at any holiday event, and she also made extra for company. She
said, “You never know when a friend or two will just drop by for a visit and a
cup of coffee and a cookie.”
Needless
to say, that Christmas I think I gained 13 pounds from eating all the broken
cookies, licking my fingers, the spoons, and the bowls after each new batch of
cookies, and of course taste testing each “first batch” to see if Grandma and I
had it “just right.”
We
hope you enjoy Merrill Gardens at First
Hill’s December Monthly Calendar of Events. We guarantee that you
won’t gain 13 pounds for opening up our Calendar of Events and checking out all
of our “goodies!” We invite you to take a look at all of the
events we have planned for our residents.
Perhaps
you wish to select an activity or two for fun, enjoyment, and for making new
friends. Pick out a game of Bingo, Bridge, Chair Yoga, Wii Bowling, going on a
scenic drive with Patrick or Charlie, swimming, or join in one of our exercise
classes - bring along one or two of your friends to enjoy an afternoon with us
and stay for dinner as our guests! We have over 150 activities on the calendar
and lots of extra holiday cookies to go around.
Merrill Gardens at First Hill is well known
for its fantastic food (our Chef Thomas is a better cook than my Grandma - and
believe me that is saying a lot!), so you may just have to stay for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner as our guests. The coffee is hot, the cookies are homemade,
and the banana splits are so big they have to be loaded onto a plate! Now, when
was the last time you had a banana split? Come on, be “naughty” and splurge a
little – we promise we won’t tell Santa! The diet can wait for the New Year’s
resolution - which is just around the corner.
Just
pick up your phone and call us at (206) 624-7637 and let us know when
you and one or two of your friends wish to come into Merrill Gardens at First Hill for some good old-fashioned fun.
Make
a resolution this New Year to break up your routine, get ready for a new adventure,
and come in to meet and make some new friends at First Hill! Like my Grandmother always said, “Never be afraid of a
new adventure - life is supposed to be lived with joy.” (She told me that after
teaching me new things: the “joy” of learning how to milk the goats without
getting kicked in the shins, and the “joy” of learning how to gather the eggs
in the henhouse without getting pecked to death by the hens!)
Our
staff is as friendly as our residents, and we promise you a good time and a
great meal with lots of extra cookies, hot chocolate, and hot coffee.
Have
a happy holiday season!
Sincerely,
Craig
& your friends at Merrill Gardens
at First Hill
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