A Christmas Tree Lighting

Our town does an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony every year.  They light up the large tree in front of the town hall in addition to have a petting zoo, performers, cookies and hot chocolate, and a visit from Santa Clause.  It was supposed to be December 5, but for the 3rd year in a row inclement weather forced the town to push it back.  The rescheduled date was this past Friday, December 12.  It was a little chilly out but not unbearable.

A nice perk that our town does is for the month of December they turn off all the meters to allow people to enjoy their holiday shopping and activities without being required to worry about feeding the meter.  A lot of the neighboring towns do the same.

We, of course, went right for the petting zoo upon arrival.  Marshall loved feeding and petting the animals.  There was also some goats and a llama.  My favorite was the little donkey.  All he wanted was for people to scratch between his ears.

Marshall's reaction when they announced that Santa had arrived and was in route...  he was jumping up and down.

And this is what I got when I asked them to smile... 

Around 5:40pm, with a countdown lead by the mayor, they lit the tree.  The holiday ensemble from the high school also play holiday music.

Once the tree was lit, you could hear the sirens.  Santa arrives every year in a fire truck with a police escort.

2 years ago, Marshall wouldn't go near him, but this year he couldn't wait to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas:  a semi truck with an airplane.  I was surprised that he went right up to Santa Clause and just started talking.  I couldn't get Marshall to smile because he was too busy telling Santa what he wanted, but I was happy to get any kind of picture this year.

Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to catch you up on my December Daily project, which I'm a tad bit behind on.

~AKO

Marshall's First School Winter Show

Yesterday was Marshall's winter show at his school.  I was a little concerned with how he would do since we've been having some behavior issues (more on that later) and he is sometimes difficult and won't follow instructions or do what he is supposed to do.

The show was during the day, so I didn't know how much of a turn out there would be, but I was very happy to see so many parents were able to make the show.  It was a full house.  Freddy and I ended up standing in the back because I couldn't see anything sitting in the back rows.  Short people do not do well sitting in the back :)

I should take a step back and explain that Marshall's school has 3 classes:  The 2 1/2 year olds, the 3 - 4 year olds, and the 5 year olds.  Marshall is in with the 3 - 4 year olds.  I was curious on how they were going to organize 40 toddlers to perform anything but they did it!

Marshall's class was first and they performed the story Tacky the Penguin.  Everyone had lines from the book and most of them remembered what they were supposed to say with little to no prompting.  Marshall was one of the hunters who come out to hunt the penguins.

When they first came out, he was doing his shy thing where he covers his face and turns his back to people.  But he took a minute and scanned the room.  I'm so glad we were standing up in the back because he was able to see us.  As soon as he saw us, the shyness went away and he actively participated in the story.  At that moment, I made a mental promise to him that I would attend as many of his activities as I can.  Just the look on his face when he saw us was priceless.

After the shows, they had holiday treats for everyone.  And each class made a gift for their parents.  Marshall's class made little snowmen with hot chocolate mix and marshmallows.

We may be cracking into that hot chocolate tonight if it stays chilly!

~AKO

Historic Trolley Rides

Anyone else freaked out because December is half over???  This past week has flown right by and it seems like we didn't do much.  Where does the time go??

Last Friday was supposed to be our town's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the town hall.  Because of the rainy weather, for the 3rd year in a row, it was postponed to tonight.  But they still had the Saturday activities go on as scheduled even though it rained all day.  A lot of stuff cost money, but one of the activities that was completely free was the trolley rides that went through the downtown area.

We've lived in our town for 2 years now and have never done this so I thought it would be something fun for us to do.  And did I mention it was free :)

There was a pretty steady rain all day, but quite a few people showed up for the trolley anyway.  Marshall was super excited to ride the trolley.

It was hard to take pictures of the view because the windows kept fogging up, but the town historian gave us a historic tour of the downtown area of our town.  Turns out, there is a gated community where quite a few famous families lived during the turn of the 20th century.  Thomas Edison had a huge influence on our town and his home is located in this little community.  We're hoping to take a tour of the house in the spring or summer when it is much warmer to do an outside walking tour.

As Marshall gets older and more aware of things, I've been trying to find stuff for us to do as a family.    I came to the realization a few months ago that we really weren't doing much as a family because we were getting to involved in our day to day activities.  Our town and its neighboring towns always have fun family activities so we've been trying to take advantage of what our area has to offer... especially the free stuff!

BTW... My hair looks wet because it is!  They had canopies set up for us to stand under while waiting for the trolley to show up.  But if anyone bumped the legs, all of the water that had been pooling on the top would spill off the sides.  And, yep, I was standing by the edge and got a nice shower on my head and down my back.

~AKO