Weekender Picks: Cottages in the Woods

The Scandinavian Cottages in the Woods at Good Templar Park has become an annual event for me and our youngest daughter, Tricia.

She's a junior at Geneva High School now, and this is the fifth-annual event, so we've been walking over to the cottages this time of year since she was in, what, seventh grade?

The idea is, we go from cottage to cottage and look at all the crafts and baked goodies (Lingonberry Café and Swedish Bakery) and holiday cards and Dala horses and gnomes and Santa Lucia and all kinds of authentic Swedish stuff, and at some point, she gets separated from me and we meet up, and magically, something from the event ends up as my Christmas gift. She likes to think it's her "ninja" skills that allow her to pick up my present, right in front of my nose, without me ever having a hint at what the present might be.

And that works just fine with me. Because college isn't that far around the corner, and who knows how many chances we'll have to do it all again?

You can make the "Cottages" part of your holiday-season memories, too. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at Good Templar Park on East Side Drive in Geneva.