Christmas Activities #1: Tree Lighting at Victoria Gardens

It's no secret that kids love Christmas... what with the presents, the fat guy in the bright red suit, the giant trees with toys all over and under them, the lights on all the houses, the fun songs, the eggnog... oh wait, I'm combining our loves here.  :-)  Truth is, it really is the most wonderful time of the year.  I love it!  It's stressful, and tiring, and can be a complete money suck, but I still love the whole season.  I sooo wish that it didn't start before Thanksgiving though.  Come on people, wait just a few more days before you start piping the music into the stores, shoving the toys down our throats, and putting the lights up (that said, I went into Gymboree a week ago and they already had Valentine's clothes/accessories out so it's not limited to Christmas).  But, in the case of the tree lighting, I was kinda glad they did it early, November 19th to be exact (a week before Thanksgiving!).  That way it didn't compete with all the other Christmas activities that were going on.  We tried to go last year but got there too late and there was no parking left.  So, this year we went an hour and a half early with Luna Moms Club. 

It was super chaotic and packed and, of course, started late.  But the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Like I said - we went with my moms group...

There wasn't actually very many of us, 5 moms and our kids, but it was still crazy.  Trying to keep the kids contained, in a small area, in a large space, with a lot of people around.  I was just glad I wasn't doing it alone!  I'm not sure you can see in the pic above how hard it was just to get a picture of the kids, much less anything else, but you'll just have to trust me.

At least Kayla was with her favorite people!

Zoe, Marissa, and Savanna (and their moms!)



Oh, and us of course!

Okay, so what exactly happens at a tree lighting?  Well, they have music playing, of course.  They had a laser light show with beams of color shooting over our heads and projecting shapes on the walls around us, and, and, and, they had fireworks!  Yay!  I was kinda surprised that Tyler and Kayla did so well with the fireworks (though Tyler did eventually break down but mostly b/c he was tired).  And, of course, the tree was lit.  Eric held Kayla most of the time during the event so she had a great view, I assume, of all these things.

All in all I thought it was fun.  It was short, and I'm not completely sure it was worth all the waiting and the chaos, but the kids had fun.  Kayla couldn't stop talking about the "big tree" and the "colors" that she saw with "nana" (Savanna).  She even told me what colors she saw.  :-) 

Tyler really liked the lasers and everything, but I think he was happiest as we were leaving. 

We'll probably do it again next year, but maybe not sit at the back of the yard, behind the tree, where you never saw Santa!  Double oops!