Our Christmas festivities began last Tuesday at Crown Center's Crayola Land with our visit to Santa. As one might gather by viewing this picture, Evan was not a fan at all. Surprisingly, once I removed him from from Santa's perch and he gladly high fived Santa he softly muttered "I unt dump truck" to the jolly ole fella. We enjoyed the company of dear old friends and loved lunch at Fritz's (especially not having to wait to eat at Fritz's!).
The celebration continued with my parents this past weekend...
It all began with anther trip to Crown Center to shop, eat, choose new ornaments and see the lights. We enjoyed the huge model train exhibit in Union Station and a chance to see the festive holiday sights in the heart of our city. Just after crossing the freight house bridge to return to our car we heard the rumble of a train heading down the track. We stood at the fence along the railway and saw 3, count them 3 HUGE real choo choo trains. We watched in awe as a coal train, an oil train and a freight train barrelled down the tracks next to Jack Stack and Lydia's (NOTE: Will park here always in hopes we can catch this awesome sight again someday!)
Christmas could have been over at that point and the kids would have had, though not tangible, the most exciting gift ever! But never fear, gifts awaited at Mimi and Papa's. We had an old fashioned slumber party a mere mile from home and awoke Sunday morning with the same excitement I recall having as a kid.
As promised we all kept gifts quite simple and thoroughly enjoyed the creativity explored and the memories created on that perfect Christmas morning. The day also brought with it a chance to visit Santa's Workshop (aka Great Aunt Carol's uber fantastic craft party for grandkids of her dear friends...every craft that you could imagine but would never want to clean up after in your own house!) 
We returned to Mimi and Papa's for a lovely turkey dinner and enjoyed having a moment to savor the time we shared before racing ahead to the final 4 days before Christmas!
I spent Monday scurrying around to host a recipe swap amongst the neighbor gals - we had a lovely time tasting new appetizers and swapping yummy holiday goodies. The highlight was definitely Vanessa's Hot Butter Rum beverage...mmmm!! It was certainly a great way to remain in the spirit of the season!
Pics below include kids in Christmas jammies, cookie decorating and corn dog eating (FYI judging by the looks of it Harvey House at Union Station serves the world largest corndog !)
Merry Christmas to all...and to all a good night! Hope you make it on Santa's NICE list!!
