Tree lighting at North Hills

I'm not one to celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving. We usually get our tree and decorate our house a couple of weeks before Christmas. But, this year, we're "taking a walk on the wild side"! Since our kids will all be here right after Thanksgiving, we're getting our tree on Friday, and we went to a tree lighting at a local shopping center last Saturday night.

We'd never been before, but it sounded like a lot of fun. So, we bundled up and set out to see what the fuss was all about.

It was really chilly, so that led to lots of snuggles.

When we got there, the first thing we found was the bouncy obstacle course, always a hit with my kids.

Abbey discovered a cow statue that she thought was absolutely gorgeous, and wanted to make sure I took her picture with this beautiful creature.

Can you figure out why she was so enamored with this bovine?

Then it was time for the tree lighting.

After the appropriate "ooos" and "ahhhs", we decided to take a break from the cold and get some coffee and hot chocolate from Starbucks.

While Abbey is an old pro, (one of her first words was "barbucks"), we found out that Elijah only will tolerate "cold chocolate".

His reaction to his first sip. Daddy saved the day and asked for some ice to cool down his drink.

 The highlight of the evening was the sledding hill. No kidding, they had trucked in some snow and set up a little sledding hill.

So much fun that we had to do it twice

We thought we had done it all and were ready to leave, when Elijah reminded me that I had promised he could ride the Christmas train.

It took us a while to find the line. The line was huge, it was going to be about an hour wait. We all wanted to leave, but our little conductor would not have it. (I had promised, after all).

He didn't mind at all waiting in line to ride a little train around a parking lot, while our fingers and toes were getting numb from the cold.

I tried to bribe him...ice cream, riding the train at the park, chewing gum...Nope! He wasn't cutting any deals, he wanted to ride that train.

So we waited, and waited and finally got on the train.

One happy camper. He even got to hold the glow-stick candle

The look on his face made it worth all the waiting, every second!

It really was quite a fun evening and did give me a little bit of Christmas cheer! So much that  I went home and started some online Christmas shopping.

My two really enjoyed themselves, and that was the best part!