December came in like – well, December.  It was nice to have safe driving conditions on Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Bea Kimmerly’s family from Battle Creek was up for Thanksgiving – Ann and Jack and their son AJ, and Pat and his son Max. The Kennedy’s had a full house with three of their four children and all eight grandchildren, ages 4 to 13.

Dale and Joan Blount are back from Thanksgiving in St. Joseph with their daughter Andrea Makaraukas and her husband Jim and their two children, Lauren, who is a freshman at Indiana University, and Jeff, who is in high school. They were joined by their daughter Kristen Brown from Mount Pleasant and her husband Jeff and their children, Daniel and Erica.

Sam and Mary Cone’s son, Steve, spent the past week in Omena on his honeymoon with his new wife, Meg. They live in Cincinnati.

Kingfish, aka Jim, and Kathy Miller are back from Charlotte, N.C., where they got to see their first grandchild, Sarah Elizabeth Hoffman. Sarah’s paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Hoffman, who was the mayor of Tonawanda, N.Y., for 12 years and its first woman mayor. Sarah was born on her grandmother’s birthday, Nov. 20, which is also Elizabeth Hoffman Day in Tonawanda. Jim and Kathy drove to Charlotte and stopped on the trip down and spent the night with Harold and Kanda McKee in Ft. Wright, Ky. Jim’s artwork was selected for the second year in a row for the label of the Leelanau Cellars Baco Noir Nouveau wine.  The wine will be available starting this weekend.

The Omena Potluck is Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 6 p.m. Walt and Bev Gaudette are the hosts.  Bring your Christmas spirit and a dish to pass.

Kathy and Lauren Browning and Debby Disch enjoyed the Festival of Trees last week. Christmas tree designers with Northport connections did well at the festival this year. David Chrobak won second place in the Large Tree category and Janelle Dahlberg took third place. Her tree also won first place in the People’s Choice voting.

Thanks to Club 21 for alerting the township board to the need for repairs and painting at the Omena fire hall and community room, and thanks to the township board for having the repairs done by local contractors.

Happy birthday to Shelby Lingaur.

By Leslie Disch

Phone/fax: 386-5686

email: phen.omena.2@gmail.com

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