Merry Christmas!

 

Holiday Show

The kids' daycare put on its annual Holiday Show on Friday. Just like last year, Clare is too young to be in the show, but she was happy to sit in the audience to cheer on Sean!  

Clare waits patiently:

"Where Sean? Sean go? Sean? Sean?"

Sean's class filed in:

Sean's class sang a spirited rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"

And I SWEAR I hit "record" on my camera, to record the song, but there's no recording - D'oh!!! So, the highlights of the performance - 1) Sean was so excitted to sing in front of a room full of people; 2) Sean and his best pal, Gavin (on Sean's right in the photo above), took turns leading the class; 3) Sean and Gavin also took turns singing the loudest; and 4) Sean decided to sing a solo of "la la las" during an instrumental break in the song. 

The whole room clapped and cheered for Sean's class - and I'm pretty certain that his biggest fan - Clare - clapped the hardest :-)

The Big City

We took the kids to Philadelphia for a day of Christmas fun (just like Curious George!) The day started off kind of rocky since somebody seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed :-)

"I don't want to go to Phillydelphia! It stinks! I want to stay home in my pajamas! Phillydelphia is stinky!"

We were able to coax Sean into leaving the house with the promise of a train ride with Grummy and Pop Pop. After getting off the train, our first stop was Macy's in the Wannamaker Building for the light show and organ concert in the Grand Court. We were a little early for the show, so Sean climbed around the base of the bronze eagle scuplture:

After a few minutes of waiting, the show began. Narrated by Julie Andrews, the show includes songs from The Nutcracker, as well as classics such as "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman".  Here's a snippet:

(I love the snowmen's arms!)

 

 

After the light show, we headed upstairs to walk through the Dickens Village, but the line was very, very long. Much too long for two toddlers to wait, so we moved on to our next stop - Reading Terminal Market to see the holiday model railroad display:

 

 

Sean loved looking at all the different trains - the Polar Express! Santa's train! Thomas! - and all the different parts of the display arranged around almost 1/3 of a mile of track. After awhile, it started to get hot for us in the Market - and we were getting hungry! So we went out into the fresh air to the Philadelphia Christmas Village at Love Park:

 

 

We took a break for snacks and refreshments and to let the kids run around for awhile:

 

Then we went to one of our favorite spots in Philly for lunch - Monk's Cafe - Clare loved the fries and the bourbon mayonnaise.

 

After lunch, Sean was in a great mood - playing with Grummy's bell necklace -

 

but before we knew it, he was out like a light:

 

While Sean napped we walked up to the Comcast Building to see the "Comcast Experience" - a Christmas spectacular on the 2,000 square feet LED screen in the lobby:

 

 

Clare liked the show and the "snow" that fell from the ceiling when the show was over. Sean slept through the whole thing and most of the train ride home and Clare joined him for a nap on the train as well.  What a Christmas-tacular day!



Light Parade

We took the kids to Collingswood for the town's annual Christmas Parade of Lights. We parked at the PATCO parking lot and Sean asked, "Why are we at the Farmers' El at night?"

 

The main street all lit up:

Ready for the parade to start!

Dozens of firetrucks and floats festooned with lights came down the street:

Reindeer on top of an old-fashioned fire truck

So cool!

Dalmation dogs!

A Christmas tree in a pick-up :-)

And last, but definitely not least, Santa Claus!