We're going to be in and mostly out of the office in the next week or two, spending time with our families and enjoying the best the holidays have to offer.
From our JM family to yours, Happy Holidays and have a safe and happy New Year!
One of my favorite traditions of the holiday season is heading out to a Christmas tree farm in search of the perfect tree. (Check out the December 2009 issue of JM for tips on choosing and decorating your tree.) Growing up, I always had an artificial tree. But when my husband and I started our own family we decided to give the real deal a try. Now there's no going back.
It's not that it's been easier having a live tree. I'll never forget the year we woke up on Christmas morning to find our tree had fallen over onto its side, scattering presents everywhere. We blamed the mishap on a clumsy Santa, but I'm sure that we over-watered the poor tree and rotted its trunk. There have also been the trees that have been way too big and the trees that have been way too small, and sometimes we find pine needles in peculiar places months later.
Still, the hunt for "the one" has become a priceless family adventure. If you've always had an artificial tree because you thought a live one might be too much work, give it a try next year. Like me, you might just get hooked!
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas! Angie
You've been rushing around shopping for gifts and your downtime at home is filled with decorating, wrapping, baking and entertaining. Need some time to relax, a chance to have some stress-free fun? Let JM help. We know all the best spots and fun events to keep that holiday cheer in your life this month.
• December 4 and 5 the Johnstown Concert Ballet will present their annual performance of the holiday classic The Nutcracker. Each year, different dances are added to the show and some of the costumes are changed in order to keep it fresh and exciting. Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra offers their version at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg on December 12 and 13, the same nights Centre Dance performs in State College at The State Theatre.
• Also this weekend, December 4-6, the gang at Cresson Lake Playhouse will bring legal action against one of the holiday's biggest and most famous meanies. The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge takes place after his amazing transformation — with a little help from three Christmas ghosts — when he slips back into his old ways and must take responsibility for his actions.
• For all the kids out there, or those who are just kids at heart, check out the Steel City Con, a.k.a. The Pittsburgh Toy, Comic and Childhood Collectible Show, taking place December 4-6. It's the biggest toy show in the entire country and will feature celebrity appearances by Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in Star Wars; Robb Demarest, lead investigator for Ghost Hunters International and more!
• Learn the traditional art of psyanky with Paulett Simunich at the BOTTLE WORKS Ethnic Arts Center December 5. Although this is a traditional Ukrainian Easter egg practice, I'm sure you could make a few that really take on the colors and feeling of this time of the year.
• It's hard to escape the excitement of American Idol, one of the nation's most watched television shows. On December 10, the performers come to you as the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center presents American Idol Stars for the Holidays. It's your favorite contestants singing your favorite Christmas songs.
• Take your little one to have breakfast with the man of the month, Santa Claus, and then go on a cookie walk afterwards. The magic happens December 13 at St. Andrew School in Benscreek.
• Two-time Grammy award winning rock music chameleon Rita Coolidge will bring her unique sound to holiday classics at The Arcadia Theater in Windber December 17 during A Rita Coolidge Christmas.
• The Gambler carols downtown December 19: A Kenny Rogers Christmas comes to the Cambria County War Memorial Arena.
• Check out a favorite holiday classic (starring a certain local leading man) as it was meant to be seen — on the big screen. The State Theatre in State College presents It's a Wonderful Life December 19, and 21-23. Admission is just $5!
• It's back! Head to downtown for Celebration Johnstown on December 31 and ring in 2010 with this family-focused event.
Because our production schedule has us start working on issues two months before they arrive in your mailbox, we run into difficult situations from time to time. Everyone wants to see the gorgeous blooms and buds of spring in the May issue, but when we're assigning photographers it's still freezing cold outside and sometimes still snowing! Ditto for October's changing leaves.
For the past couple weeks we've been putting together the December issue. Many of the images we needed to put together were relatively easy to accomplish, a few lights here, a couple of decorations there, voila, instant Christmas.
But my feature proved to be a little bit more difficult. My editor, Angie, came up with this story concept a few years ago and this year was finally the year to make it happen. Entitled "O, Christmas Tree," it's a 3-step guide to choosing a decorating the perfect holiday tree.
Here's where it gets difficult! I called the sources for this story BEFORE Halloween — a Christmas tree grower and a local Christmas decorator and enthusiast — and asked them to make some Christmas magic two months early.
Thankfully for us and for you readers, I was working with the cream of the crop! On Monday, I traveled to O'Brien Landscaping and Lawn Care off of Manor Drive in Ebensburg. The plan was to light one perfect tree in a field of evergreen. Did I mention it was pitch black? I took a few photos of our freelance photographer extraordinaire, Mike Karcher of WIX PIX making the magic happen:
They actually had to run power from their van to the camera and both the Christmas lights and the photographic lights. Here's another crappy one I took:
This is a little closer to what we were trying to achieve, but I'm no photographer. And Mike is an amazing photographer. So use your imaginations! Here's a better shot of Mike and his assistant for the next day's shoot, a 3-D animator also named Mike. WIX PIX is chock full of exciting and interesting and talented people and it's always a pleasure to work with them:
But you'll have to check out the amazing final product when the December issue comes out November 25th.
The next day was even more magical. Pete Maurizio, who's been obsessed with all things Christmas pretty much since birth, agreed to decorate some of his trees for our photo shoot. Pete puts up over 20 trees in his home every year and covers them in amazing vintage lights, garland and ornaments. It takes him 16 hours (!!!) to decorate his largest and everything is absolutely meticulous. In less than two weeks, Pete decorated four gorgeous trees and covered his foyer in a stunning garland of poinsettas and beads.
Here's Pete with the stunning 16-hour tree:
And a dorky picture of me with the same tree:
Again, you'll have to wait for the December issue to see just what we did in Pete's house. I really do think that this is one of the best looking features we've ever published.
So that's what it takes to bring Christmas to our readers, some sweet talking and hard work and a little of the magic of the holiday even if it is the first week of November.
- Trina
Have a knack for taking a great picture? Why not share it with thousands of JM readers?
Shutterbugs, the newest addition to Johnstown Magazine, is quickly becoming one of our most popular departments. Each month you can find it in the Miscellany section (near the beginning of the magazine), filled with photos from you - the reader and very talented amateur photographer. For example, this lovely shot of the Quemahoning Dam was taken and submitted by Kerry Naugle.
So get snappin'. We are currently accepting images that were shot in the Greater Johnstown region and depict either of the following two topics: Fire or the Color Red. Get creative, then show us what you've got. Fire photos will run in the January issue of JM and, just in time for Valentine's Day and the American Heart Association's "Go Red!" month, we'll publish the red photos in February.
Can you believe it’s already November? 2009 has just flown by — maybe because of all the fun and entertaining activities available in the area. Here's a list of the best of what this crisp and cold month has to offer.
• Regional favorites The Clarks will perform November 1 at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg. The group has gone from playing clubs in their native Pittsburgh to selling over 300,000 CDs and appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman.
• Learn in-depth about Altoona-born abstract expressionist painter Shirley Goldfarb at two Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art exhibits. At SAMA Altoona, Shirley Goldfarb: The Early Years runs from the beginning of the month until Valentine's Day and contains 40 works from when the artist first moved to Paris. From November 20 to February 20 at SAMA Loretto will be the exhibit Shirley Goldfarb: The Later Years with a collection of pieces created up until the artist's death in 1980.
• This Wednesday and Thursday, November 4 and 5, the Friends of the Cambria County Library are holding a fundraiser Trash ’n Treasure sale. Help support the library in its current time of need and find some fun stuff too!
• Singing sensation Miley Cyrus is playing the Bryce Jordan Center November 5. Parents, bring your earplugs for the inevitable ear piercing tween screaming.
• Attention polka fans: November 6-8 is Eddie Blazonczyk's Fall Polka Festival at Seven Springs Mountain Resort! Shine up your dancing shoes!
• Jigu! Thunder Drums of China crash into the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown November 15.
• The Meyersdale High School drama department presents the always popular classic Godspell November 19-21. Begun as a Carnegie Mellon student's thesis project, the play was first performed in 1970 and has continued to be wildly successful ever since.
• The Pennsylvania State Cheerleading Championships are held in Downtown Johnstown every year at the War Memorial Arena. This year, they take place November 21 and 22. Go, team, go!
• You can start to feel that Christmas spirit big time November 28: the Tony Kenny Christmas Show featuring the Tony Kenny Step Dancers hits the Arcadia Theater and Sanata Claus arrives at the Rockwood Mill Shoppes along with a showing of a Christmas-themed theater production featuring the Rockwood Players. It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas!
We know the photos in Johnstown Magazine are an important feature our readers love. And not only current photos ... it seems us Johnstowners really enjoy reminiscing through the archived photos we've been able to find.
This YWCA swimming pool image really brought back memories for me. I was immediately transformed to a Saturday morning in winter when I was about nine years old. I remembered the air was thick with the smell of chlorine as I walked through the locker room to the steamy pool area. Hey ... but it was winter and I was swimming in Johnstown!
When I saw the current photo (on the Table of Contents page) the pool was still steamy but it somehow "shrunk" over the years. (insert smile here)
If you have been digging through some old Johnstown photos lately and would like to share them with our readers, please contact us. How many other fond memories are out there in an old dusty box?
When I first started working at JM (over four years ago!), I was ecstatic. During Sunday dinner with my in-laws soon after, my FIL burst my journalistic bubble when he said, "You'll run out of stories in a year-and-a-half." (I must point out that he's not all doom and gloom, just a logical number crunching kind of guy. Love ya, Don!)
While I was certain he was wrong, his comment did give me pause. Johnstown isn't a big place. There are only so many businesses, events, people even, to go around. Off the top of my head, I could only come up with enough articles to fill a few issues. My confidence had been cracked.
What I soon discovered was that JM has a secret weapon when it comes to content, a limitless source of inspiration and creativity that repeatedly highlights the interesting, the little known, the best our region has to offer.
That secret weapon is you.
Our readers have provided us with countless ideas, from cool businesses and restaurants to check out to local people making a difference to historic fun and facts we never would have found armed with just Google alone. Inspired to try some more sustainable dining habits in May's "Eat Local" story? You can thank a JM reader. "The Mighty Conemaugh" in September educated us all on one of our most amazing tributaries — also a reader suggestion. October's "The Gypsy Vanners" highlighted a quaint and unusual horse farm right in our own backyard that we never would have found out about if not for a helpful JM fan. And in the November issue which will soon hit newsstands and mailboxes, two stories, one on steel mill safety through the years and the other on the history and current renovations of the YWCA, were both prompted by readers who took the time to give us a call or jot down an email with their idea.
The thing is, we want to make magazines that you want to read. When readers care enough to send us suggestions, we care enough to use them.
So if you didn't know already, consider yourself informed. Think your neighborhood coffee shop deserves a spot in the "Taste of the Month" department? Tell us. Do you enjoy an unusual hobby or recreational activity regionally? It would probably make a good story. Do you have a pile of old photos or a scrapbook about a captivating local event? Let us know! Give us a call at (814) 532-5147, send us an email or even write to us at Johnstown Magazine, P.O. Box 340, Johnstown, PA 15907. We're dying to hear from you.
Smart shoppers start searching for holiday presents early, and we know that JM readers are some of the smartest out there. That's why we're taking a moment to remind you that Johnstown Magazine makes a wonderful gift. Get a subscription for a family member, friends, your child's teacher, the family doctor and more — everyone with a local connection finds something of interest in our pages.
To inquire or order gift subscriptions, you can email us or call (814) 532-5003 or toll free at (866) 307-0906. Have a happy holiday with JM!
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