New Year’s Eve at Mark and Noel’s
Category Archives: Holidays
December 2023 Vallejo Gay Network Potluck
Hayden Family Xmas 2023
Shando and I had a wonderful xmas gathering yesterday at my sister’s house in Granite Bay. My nephew is only 16 and towers over all of us. My brother, sister and I are there with their kids, Brooke and Nicholas, and my brother-in-law, Ken. It looks like everyone got the memo to wear grey, but my niece is actually wearing maroon (you just can’t see it in this photo).
We brought the foldable electric scooter which Shando finally agreed to try on the flat street in my sister’s neighborhood. I think he was afraid to say how much he loved it, but he is always worried about breaking a bone, since he’s proud that he has never had to wear a cast in his life.
We brought two of our senior dogs, Polar and Capulet. My sister’s brown-spotted dog Ricki was reticent about the company, but she and Polar fell in love and played a ton, which was nice to see. My brother brought Mocha, the little chihuahua mix, who was more aloof. I listened carefully to the video to make sure we protected those we were gossiping about. They are not identifiable from this video. 🙂
Gifts for my niece and nephew (from “Guncles”):
Xmas Light Holiday Winners in Glen Cove
This morning my colleague at Glen Cove Community Association, Nancy, and I gave out prizes to the top three Christmas Light contest winners in our neighborhood of Vallejo. I was not one of the judges, but had the honor of handing out the prizes as President of GCCA. It turns out Shando and I knew Andy and Carlton who won the first prize, nominated by their development representative Dina (who joined us for the photo). Only at the 11th hour did Shando and I even realize we knew the first prize winners. Such a small world. They moved into their home a few weeks before we did in 2020. All the prize winners were wonderful and warm. We thank them for their spirit and spending a few minutes with us on Christmas Eve.
Block Appreciation
For our fourth xmas in Vallejo, Shando really got into the spirit this year. He baked and manually decorated what he calls “ugly sweater cookies” (original and cute), paired with coffee mugs, and chocolate. We put the items in our sleigh, I mean a wagon, adorned Santa hats, and walked around our block handing them out to people who watch out for our house, letting them know what great neighbors they are. We’re so lucky to live here and to have been welcomed by such great folks both on our block and throughout Vallejo.
Xmas Decor 2023
From the outside:
Glen Cove Community Association Holiday Party
Here in Vallejo, there’s a fabulous restaurant called Provisions that we rented out for our holiday party. Many of our current Board members/development representatives were able to attend with their plus ones.
Most of us who attended are featured in these pictures, but after two attendees left I remembered to start taking pictures.
Shando Makes Local Paper Front Page
Shando was on the front page of the Vallejo Times-Herald! This is at least the second time Shando’s been photographed in that paper. Other friends, including Santa, were in the picture too, of course, I’m a little shocked that the headline says “several hundred” when the crowd looked like THOUSANDS to me.
Madhatter Parade December 2023
Shando and I combined our footage from our perspective of this year’s Madhatter Holiday parade. We handed out candy as elves with Santa’s sleigh again, which is a major joy, making our way down to the Vallejo Ferry Building area for the official Vallejo xmas tree lighting. I was disheartened by how the rain started (while not even forecast) on our way to the event, but for the most part it held back and we were able to enjoy a relatively warm and eventually dry night for the majority of the evening.
Obligatory pre-parade group shot
Our friend Lisa can be a real Grinch!
Lots of our same friends from last year were on hand to be elves again. Shando was a lot more prepared with his costume, although there were plenty of Caucasian elf earpieces at our disposal and some other extraneous accessories we could have borrowed.
We helped load the candy for handing out in the back of the sleigh even with some of the volunteers from earlier today with the HSNB event, not to mention Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Shando and I struggled to make use of his elf shoe coverings, but they were not conducive to being easily slipped on. I had a brainstorm to put them over my socks and then use these sandals so that I could sort of simulate them and at least get the bells to work. I eventually took out the red pointy trim over my white jeans so it looked a bit better, but I’m proud we got to use this part of his costume in at least this way:
Shando and I are also visible in this video, together with a bunch of the other elves:
2023 Photos with Santa Part 2
Thanks to the volunteers who helped out and donated their time, including my husband, Shando. He brought Snoopy and Peaches in the morning.
This video also gives some perspective of the fabulous space we were graciously permitted to use for our event, Tony’s Cakes is going to move to 418 Georgia Street, Vallejo from their current location on Springs Road. This is all of course for the benefit of HSNB.
I’m grateful that every year we have at least one family bring cats for HSNB’s Photos with Santa. This year was no exception. Santa was absolutely fawning over this kitten and another cat that this family brought.
Santa almost made Mrs. Claus jealous when he danced with his neighbor. Uh oh! Drama!
I stole this idea from Mrs. Claus and Trundy, but the Santas gave me a chance to do a cute ELF MOMENT with my husband.
Vallejo Mayor Robert McConnell, adorned in his Madhatter Parade garb, joined the Santas for some photos.
This is a group of photos with some of the kids and families I photographed myself. Some of these kids start as super shy, so we try to bring them casually up to the Santas to meet them, offering to allow them to remain with their parents if they prefer. Meanwhile, other kids run over and immediately reach out to hug the Santas, which just “sleighs” me. I have so many good memories from these events. I just wished I could capture more of these moments, but we were very busy on a good day to raise funds for homeless cats and dogs in our area.
Here are some of the other precious dog pictures from yesterday with the Santas for HSNB in Vallejo. The grey Pit, Misty, was adopted from HSNB when she was 4 months old. She’s now 11!
