Hometown Christmas Stroll

Our hometown has a Christmas Stroll every year with oh-so-much going on downtown, fun and food for all. We've gone to it almost every year since we moved here, so it's definitely a family tradition.

Santa always visits with the kids at the library. So we use it as our chance for the kids to sit on his lap, take a picture and tell him what they'd like for Christmas. It was a very long line to wait in this year, so Dave held our place while I took the kids to the magic balloon man. Caroline got a mouse balloon that she absolutely loved at first sight. As soon as each kid got their balloon creation, we went back to the Santa line with Dave. Unfortunately, right when it was our turn to visit with Santa, Caroline's mouse balloon broke. Oh, the tears!! We assured her that we would ask the balloon man to fix it, but it took letting a few families to go in front of us for her to calm down. Then she was concerned that Santa saw her cry...Poor thing! Thankfully he reassured her that a few tears are ok, that she had been a good girl this year. Evan got a little one on one time with Santa while Caroline settled....

...and then they all got to visit with Santa. :)


Here's the balloon man...


...and the infamous mouse balloon!


Then it was on to posing for a picture with Watson, our library's mascot.


We headed over to the fire station to see the fire safety house and the fire trucks.


Then we saw the fire department's demonstration of what happens with Christmas tree fires.


It's a very scary danger, and really drove home lessons about how to be safe during the Christmas season.


This is a video of an artificial Christmas tree burning.


After that, we went over to the community center to visit Evan's class and teacher.


There were a number of different organizations that had a display, food or activities set up for the kids in the community center. One of them was the animal shelter. The workers from the shelter brought in a couple of wild animals that had been hit by cars. During the process of being nursed back to health, they had imprinted on humans.

Here's Caroline with a sweet opposum. We told the kids that most animals of his kind were very shy and would not let you pet them like they were able to do with this one.


Here's Evan talking to a Canadian Goose, whose personality was like no other Canadian Goose we know. ;)


The kids were fascinated!


Afterwards we ran in to Henry's 5th grade teacher from last year as well as Seth's 4th grade teacher from this year, Mrs. Bateman!


Then we went over to ride the Christmas train with Santa. For the rest of the night, Caroline kept telling me how excited she was to be able to sit right next to the REAL Santa!




Our last stop for the night was Candyland. One of the banks in town decorated their office to the hilt to make it look like a lifesize replica of the board game!


I can't imagine the work involved in putting something like that together!
What a night! :)