Just a quick preview of this year’s Christmas Craft Walk! We’re excited to offer some fantastic new items this year, including new pottery and paintings, Christmas bark, apple butter, spiced nuts, mermaid sleeping bags, candies, and kitchen potholders! Some of your returning favorites include rustic holiday decor, bean soup, rag rugs, reading pillows, jewelry, ornaments, and of course, baskets! Come see us, starting tomorrow, Dec. 5! More info on our Facebook page!
#ChristmasCrafts #GenoaKingston #ChristmasShopping #SmallBizEveryDay #ShopSmall
For this Giving Tuesday, we wanted to share with you the story behind our Relay for Life cookie mixes!
There are several people in our family whose lives have been changed from cancer. In 1998, our sister, mother and aunt, Pat Astling, passed away unexpectedly from cancer. Her aunt, Glendora Carlson, passed away just two months later. We started a Relay for Life team called Walnut Acres to honor them. We wanted to do something special for these two special women in our lives. Pat had received the recipes for these cookie mixes from her aunt Glendora, and so we thought they’d be a fitting tribute. We started making these mixes as a fundraiser for our family team at the Relay for Life. We have donated all the ingredients, so your entire purchase of these cookie mixes goes to the American Cancer Society Relay for Life.
We have dedicated our efforts to the honor and memory of those loved ones in our lives who have been affected by cancer. Please consider purchasing a cookie or brownie mix this week at the Genoa-Kingston Christmas Craft Walk!
#RelayForLife #GenoaIL #ChristmasCraftWalk #GivingTuesday
The story behind our Wassail
When you walk into our house during the Christmas Craft Walk, you’ll instantly catch the scent of Christmas. You’ll be smelling our freshly brewed wassail, ready for tasting! One of our Craft Walk Traditions is providing the hot spiced beverage to all of our visitors. But, what is wassail, and why do we serve it at the Craft Walk?
The inspiration for providing wassail to visitors came from another long-time Craft Walk host, Jan Campbell. For many years, she had a warm and welcoming stop, and every shopper could help themselves to a warm cup of wassail while they browsed. When we started hosting an open house during the Craft Walk, she shared her wassail recipe with us, so we could also spread the warmth at our site. Traditional wassail has its roots in medieval England, and is typically a hot mulled cider or ale. Our recipe is family-friendly, and contains apple juice, cranberry juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.
Pick up your own bag of wassail spices next week at our stop on the Genoa-Kingston Christmas Craft Walk!
#Christmas #GenoaIllinois #Wassailing
The story behind George’s Gourmet Bean Soup
Did you know that eating beans at the New Year will bring you good luck in the coming year? In our family, George and Pat started making bean soup over 40 years ago with some friends from church. They would give the bags of beans to friends and family as gifts. In 1996, when they started hosting Drake Baskets & Friends at the Christmas Craft Walk, they wanted to share that good luck with Genoa and Kingston, too! George would put together bean soup bags with at least 10 varieties of beans for customers to buy. Each day during the Craft Walk, he’d also cook up a batch of the bean soup to share with anyone who wanted a taste. He loved sharing his good luck and his secret for full-flavor bean soup (the secret is the lemon juice-don’t skip it!). He passed away last year, but we continue the tradition in his honor.
Come to the Craft Walk the week after Thanksgiving to get some bean soup and take part in our tradition! Visit our Facebook event page for more details!
#FamilyTraditions #BeanSoup #GoodLuck #GKChristmasCraftWalk
