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Bardstown Road Aglow

Shopblogging

The Highland Commerce Guild held their annual holiday festival on Saturday. Bardstown Road Aglow attracts people from all over the area to one of the most eclectic shopping corridors in the city, Bardstown Road. Merchants offer specials and serve refreshments, while musicians play and Santa roams the street. It’s always a lot of fun.

This year, we decided to expand our participation. Typically, we stick to the most heavily traveled stretch of the road. This time, we took the free trolley down the road a bit to the shops on Baxter Avenue. We started at Lonesome Town Records, which is a small labor of love this man operates out of the front of his house. He specializes in bluegrass and old-time music. His selection is small, but surprisingly deep. I found a live CD from Old Crow Medicine Show there that I had never heard anything about. I made a note to pick it up after the holidays.

We then headed across the street to this kind of New Age/Pagan shop. The incense smelled really great in there. They let us take some pictures of their altars, including the Voo Doo and Buddhist altars. Unfortunately, they were about to close, since they weren’t participating in Aglow.

Lots of churches open for Aglow too, as it’s a great outreach night. We stopped in several this year, something we really haven’t done in the past. First up was the Episcopal Church of the Advent, which has a beautiful Rood carving. I got the first cup of cider there.

Just up the street, we saw he first caroler, and then ran into the bagpipers for the first time. Part of the fun of Aglow is going in shops that we wouldn’t normally visit. If nothing else, it’s good for the refreshments. Since a lot of the shops are small the crowds can get a little annoying, but it’s fun to pass through anyway.

Art Beat, a small gallery, is one of those kind of places. They had some unique objects, a guitar player, and some great art work by an artist named Cynthia Yeager. Her pieces were all patterned after medieval altarpieces and were just incredible.

We seemed to keep running into the bagpipers. The Louisville Bagpipe Society was wandering the road. Half started at one end and half at the other. They met up in the middle and did a short performance. It was pretty cool.

I ate a quick supper at Baja Fresh, but the place Keith wanted to eat at took their buffet down before we got there, so he got Chinese take out when we were done. We priced trees in a lot, but I thought they were high. We ended up going into three more churches, including the Highland Community Church, which I’ve been curious about. I thought their sanctuary was much smaller than the outside of the building would indicate. They have a lovely old building. After stopping in a Christian Church, I realized how boring Protestant churches are in general. So many of them have such great exteriors and bland, generic interiors. But St. James gave me plenty to photograph, including the Eye of God. Catholic Churches usually don’t fail to be interesting.

There are several antique dealers on Bardstown Road, but David Friedlander is my favorite. He always has the most interesting stuff, including small icons and comic books. (Which is, of course, why he is my favorite.) He’s never open for Aglow, though. But his window this year is pretty neat. I loved this doll-sized church/schoolhouse. Of course, I had to get my picture taken with the penguins!

We always make the point of stopping in All Booked Up during Bardstown Road Aglow. They always have a special sale. Things in my price range (under fifteen dollars) were 50% off this year! I found several old Pogo books, which were already a bargain at 10 bucks. With the sale, they were five bucks each!

I made a quick run in Ear X-Tacy to look at the used CD’s and ended up with the last gift I needed for Keith. He reads this blog, so I can’t mention it, but I know he’s going to love it!

We wrapped up this year’s Aglow with hot cider at Heine Brothers. All in all, it was a great night. The weather was fairly mild and we had a good time. But we never saw Santa!

If you want to see all the pics at once, here are mine and Keith’s. His of course are much better than mine.