Charlotte Southern Christmas Show & Imperial Beer

How's that for a title, beer and Christmas?   We all were on the road early today heading in different directions.  Gerry & Barbara joined Jane, Stephanie, Taylor, Melinda and Vicky on their way to the Southern Christmas show in Charlotte, NC after meeting at Taylor's house where she treated them to breakfast.  Grant and I went over to Larry & Jane's house to pick up Larry Jr.

The Christmas show has been running in Charlotte for 44 years according to the gourd lady who is 95 and has had a booth there since it's beginning.  She said this will be her last time having a booth since she is going to retire.  

The gang got together for a photo on the way into the show and managed to snap the picture before they were overwhelmed by the crowd.  Evidently this is a very well attended event and Gerry said the crowd at 11am was very large.  Once inside they split  up into groups since it was so difficult to stay together.  They arranged to meet at 1pm and everyone except Gerry, & Barbara left around 1:30pm.  Party poopers!

Barbara & Gerry continued to shop until 5:30pm and found numerous bargains.  She won't tell me how much she "saved" so I'm guessing I don't really want to know.  They had a great time and came out of there tired but very happy.  The best part of all the above was that I didn't have to walk around the show for 6 hours lugging all the "bargains" they found.  Whew!

Gerry said they had rooms decorated with Christmas motif and some had blue, red, etc. ribbons on them like there was a contest.  All along a wall they also had Christmas trees all decorated and many decorations in the show itself.  

While all the above was going on, the guys were relaxing watching some football on tv.  We also went shopping at Costco for some needed items and had a great lunch there.  Pizza, hot dog and a chicken bake, plus cokes.  I think we got the better of the deal on this Saturday, but everyone came out of it happy.  Win Win!

We met at a local restaurant called Hawthorne for dinner.  Barb & Gerry beat us there by a few minutes, but the timing was good.  As soon as we sat down Larry Jr. got a big smile on his face and pointed to the beer special that night.  Imperial beer from Costa Rica.  That was his favorite beer in Costa Rica and he hadn't seen any since he got back from CR in 1991.  What a reunion that was!  Gerry, Jr & I all ordered an Imperial and enjoyed it very much.  Yes, that is a Yuengling t-shirt I have on.  Still my favorite beer.

We lived in Costa Rica for six years and that is where Jr got his introduction to Imperial Beer.  We had furnished housing and when we were getting ready to depart post I was checking to see if there was any damage that we caused that I had to pay for.  When we got to Jr's bathroom door I was in for a shock.  He had pasted Imperial beer labels on the door along with many autographs and "witty" sayings.  Oooooppsss!!!!  All I could see was ca-ching ca-ching to have the door replaced.  The maintenance guys came to check over the house and saw the door and burst out laughing.  They took the door down and took it back to the warehouse where they rehung it there.  They loved it and replaced the door for no charge.  I thought that was a fair trade.