Monthly Newsletter: December 2022 (No. 11)

Carrie & Jeff
Dec 15, 2022
8 min read

This is the eleventh newsletter and monthly feature highlighting events, happenings, and general news of all channels of Our Technicolor Life.

Welcome to Our Technicolor Life! We are a husband and wife team that lives a vintage lifestyle in full color through our many adventures in our tea room, travel, entertainment, and art. Follow along each channel that makes up Our Technicolor Life.

We are Jeff and Carrie Ketterman. During the day, Jeff is a General Manager with Kasgro Rail Corporation Management Division. With a fleet of over 500 heavy-duty cars, Jeff works daily to provide solutions to various needs of the multi-dimensional rail transportation industry. By day, Carrie is a painter, illustrator, and author creating murals, paintings, and illustrations.

After closing up shop for the day. Jeff and Carrie host themed tea parties out of their historic home at The Old Capitol Tea Room, travel to festivals and vacation in The Not So Long Trailer, and have two bands, a 1950s style band, Rosie & the Rockabillies, and a 1920s style band, The Tin Pan Alley Cats. Each of these channels makes up our Technicolor Life.

TEA

October, November, and December are our busiest months at the tea room because the "tea-tre" is so rich. Yes, "tea-tre" a term we use to describe your tea experience. It's mix of tea and theatre when you join us for one of our tea party events.

The Music That Helped Win the War

This month we hosted a special Vererans Day tea event with our 1940s "Music That Helped Win the War" World War 2 Tribute Show. The Music That Helped Win the War includes actual historic video clips & sound clips of WW2 footage, actual video clips of the original performers and live songs fully costumed and themed backdrop. 24 hit songs from the 1940s and 24 vintage costumes. Thank you Veterans for your service!

Not A Clue Murder Mystery

We also hosted fan-favorite "Not A Clue" Murder Mystery. Was it Mr. Pickle in the study with the letter opener? Ms. Periwinkle in the kitchen with the knife? Or maybe Ms. Scarlett in the living room with the candlestick? Mr. Body’s body was discovered, and we had a great crowd to help solve this Murder Mystery.

Polar Express Story Time

And we officially kicked off the first of our many holiday themes with a visit from Mr. Conductor for our Polar Express Story Time & Tea. This is such a magical evening when the house is on full Christmas display, there's hot chocolate, and the telling of the story "Polar Express" read live by Mr. Conductor.

Private Parties

There were also several private parties this month. Did you know you can host private parties during the weekday or weeknights? We do not offer private parties on weekends during peak season of October, November, & December but we are happy to look into weekday or weeknight dates for a private party. For more details, pricing, and available times check out the link below.

https://www.ourtechnicolorlife.com/private-parties-2

Inquire about private parties by using the private party booking form.

https://www.ourtechnicolorlife.com/privatepartybooking

The Old Capitol Tea Room wraps up the 2022 Season Friday December 16th. We are closed January and February, so that we can actually enjoy the living room for a change and we'll begin sharing our 2023 season under upcoming events towards the end of February.

TRAVEL

With so much going on during the peak season of October, November, & December, I really have to block out days to get away. And you can be sure, I blocked my birthday weekend so we could have a little Cincinnati getaway. It started off pretty in pink with this gorgeous dress - a vintage pink gown very similar to the one Lucille Ball wears in Du Barry Was a Lady. Jeff found it for me and it was the perfect dress for birthday dinner with my Mom & Dad Cooke at Jack Fry’s.

My birthday is November 4th and we were able to head to Cincinnati that afternoon. We are both big fans of Cincinnati. There is so much to do and see in the Queen City. It is also a great foodie town. And, if you go to Cinci you have to grab a steak at Jeff Ruby’s original steakhouse - The Precinct. It is a tough ticket to get into, due to the space - relatively small. We had to settle for a 10 pm reservation a few weeks out. But, it gave us a chance to visit some of the great parks in Cincinnati and walk the Roebling Suspension Bridge (he would later go on to design the Brooklyn Bridge) and grab a few photos at night.

As usual we squeezed every bit of fun out of the weekend that we could, which included visiting two beautiful city parks (Eden & Ault), shopping (vintage shops and Jungle Jim’s), and the zoo! And when shopping at one of favorite store, Mannequin, I came across a dress that looked like it could have been used in Gone With The Wind, that was amazingly my size. Naturally, that came home with us as well - among other vintage finds.

We discovered two great brunch places and even got to unwind a bit at our Airbnb. Mission: Birthday Celebration in the Queen City - accomplished!

Hubtingburg Christmas Stroll

Last holiday season we came up with a new tradition to explore all of holiday markets that are offered within a short road trip distance from us. First we headed to Huntingburg, IN. which we have visited many times and over the summer we're finally able to catch a baseball game at the League of Their Own stadium. There are so many wonderful shops and the town looked like a winter wonderland, especially since the first snow of the season happened to be the day of the Huntingburg Christmas Stroll. The Huntingburg Christmas Stroll takes place in early to mid November in the heart of the downtown historic area. It's a Victorian Christmas and storefronts are decorated just like the holiday shopping of yesteryear. This year marked the 36th year and I know for sure we'll be back for the 37th.

Ferdinand, Indiana Christmaskindlmarkt

Later in the month we headed to Ferdinand, IN. for their Christkindlmarkt. In Germany, Christmas wares and gifts are sold in the festival-style setting ofnChristkindlmarkt. The custom began in the 14th century and continues today in the charming "Bavarian" village of Ferdinand, Indiana, the only town in the world named after Ferdinand I of Austria. The Ferdinand Christkindlmarkt, held the third full weekend in November annually, features over 200 lavishly decorated booths spilling over with quality hand-created items, antiques, art, Christmas wares, delicious regional food and wine, live entertainment, free concerts, free tours, and more. We absolutely love this holiday market and always manage to find some very special items to take home as Christmas presents for friends and family. My favorite thing about going to Ferdinand is that it really does feel like an Olde World Setting complete with the history, heritage, and the puppet show. The Melchior Marionettes have performances during the weekend and I would not miss it.

Santa Claus, Indiana

We also spent a wonderful afternoon with friends exploring Santa Claus, IN! We even visited with the “Jolly Ol’ Elf” himself! In addition to our visit with him, we wrote official “Santa Letters” and can’t wait to receive a reply! We met and bought a signed copy of “Santa’s Daughter”from Pat Koch (pronounced “Cook”)! This lovely 91-year old lady, along with her late husband, started Santa Claus Land, which eventually became Holiday World!

If you have never been to Santa Claus, IN, it is well worth a visit, and include the post office, museum and the Candy Castle in your plans. (When at the Candy Castle, be sure and get a frozen hot chocolate.)

One unexpected highlight of our afternoon was enjoying and participating in the story-time event at the St Paul’s Santa Claus church, built in 1880. The storyteller, Susan, was an absolute hoot!! She had everyone engaged in the story-telling and used over twenty volunteers from the audience. It was great fun!

ENTERTAINMENT

November was a busy month of entertainment bookings. We headed to Madison, Indiana to perform our tribute to World War 2 "The Music That Helped Win the War" for a conference at t)3 beautiful Clifty Inn Lodge overlooking the Ohio River. Then we headed to the Louisville Women's Club in Old Louisville to perform our Lucy & Desi Tribute Show.

We performed a full day of various characters for Light Up Corydon including our White Christmas Tribute Show & Sing Along, Polar Express Story Time, Christmas Carol Radio Drama, Grinch Photos & Grinch Storytime, and live music by our band, Rosie & the Rockabillies. Needless to say, the next day we were pooped but it was an excellent turn out for Light Up Corydon back at the gazebo and we had the best weather!

Light Up Corydon

We also returned to French Lick Resorts in French Lick, Indinana for their annual tree lightning ceremony. The crowd turned out in droves, especially to see The Grinch. The Grinch and Ice Princess stayed busy visiting and taking photos with everyone that had come for the holiday party and tree lighting ceremony.

French Lick Tree Lighting Ceremony

ART

A big part of my art business is painting murals. I paint murals for residential and commercial. typically, I paint a lot of nurseries, lobby's at businesses, or logos for offices, but this season I received a request to paint some storefront windows for the holidays. My business actually started out making hand painted wine glasses and other types of glassware so I have a lot of experience painting on glass but never thought to offer window painting. The first commission project was for Harevst Blessings Box, a new store in downtown Corydon and just a short walk from our house. It was really nice to be able to walk to this paint project and when I tell you the weather forecast could not have worked out better, you better believe it. I had 3 days of georgous unusually warm Weather to paint these 9 windows and then the next day, we had our first snow! The snows gods added to the magic of the theme for sure. Owners, Jeni & Ben love Charlie Brown Christmas as do I and they seriously could not have chosen a better theme for their storefront windows.

Check out this wonderful video, owner Jeni caught with the first snow of the season coming down!

Stop by see the artwork and do some shopping in downtown Corydon! Check out Harvest Blessings Box on Facebook! Located at 117 Walnut Street in downtown Corydon they are a fruit & vegetable farm store with all kinds of other local goodies. They have many fun things and products in store all locally sourced including meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, arts, crafts, and more.

In addition to Charlie Brown Christmas, I had an old basketball teammate and high school friend reach out to me about a mural for her store front. My friend, Dr. Kristen Corbett is a veterinary at The Cat Clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. Again the weather played along and I was able to create a very Catmas Christmas for their storefront windows. As one passerby noted, it was "purr-fect".

Christmas on Capitol

This holiday season our neighborhood decided to transform our street into an old fashioned Christmas with a house decorating contest to encourage visitors to drive by and check out all the decoration. If you find yourself in Corydon, cruise down Capitol and enjoy some beautiful decorations, lights, and Christmas displays. I painted a few items for Christmas last year and decided to do a few new pieces this year to go with our Mid-Century Christmas theme.

LIFESTYLE

With the holiday season in full swing and enough persimmon pulp to experiment with, I decided to try a new dessert for Thanksgiving. Jeff calls it Persumpkin Pie! (Because, Pumpkisson just sounds wrong.) I combined pumpkin and persimmon for th best of both worlds and one decadent and delicious pie!

Recipe: Persumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup canned pumpkin

2/3 cup persimmon pulp

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell

Whipped cream

Combine eggs, pumpkin, persimmon pulp, condensed milk, sugar, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and salt. Mix well. Pour filling into pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until center is firm.

At A Glance: Upcoming Events:

Friday December 2nd Grinch Tea & Story Time