Crittergators Take Over the Nittany Lion Inn!

Every year around the holidays, the Nittany Lion Inn - a lovely old inn on Penn State's main campus - hosts a gingerbread replica of itself.

In fact, one of my very first blips was a photo of last year's gingerbread model of the Inn.

Monday afternoon, I walked through the Inn to discover that this year's gingerbread replica had arrived! Hooray!

The crittergators were enchanted with it. It was so lovely, so festive, so much like real life! (Only much, much smaller - just their size!)

The crittergators sat on the balconies. They peered into the windows. They stood around the trees and sang. They even rode in the sleigh filled with presents.

A friend commented that perhaps they were part of the "Occupy" movement: "Crittergators Occupy the Nittany Lion Inn!" If "occupy" means "hang out and have fun," well, then, most certainly, they did!

At one point amid all these adventures, I looked down and realized I'd lost track of them. Oh no! Then I saw them hiding out among the gum drops. Yes, they blended in quite well, wearing their own festive shades of red and green.

We only had a few minutes to play before it was time to pack them up and get moving. And guess what they had all over their feet when I lifted them up to put them away: powdered sugar - that looked a lot like snow but tasted much, much sweeter!