Christmas season is officially here

Since they built a mall in our city down the street from us, they have a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony every year. I don’t quite remember when it was last year (I’ll have to look for the pictures), but I think this year they had it a little too early. It was yesterday. Third year in a row. They will have another one tonight. I guess for the folks that couldn’t make it yesterday. Or maybe for the kids that really enjoyed it yesterday, they can go back and see it again tonight.

Yes! We did go. This was our second year. Last year L was a little scared when they turned off the lights and the music came on and the tree was lit. A was too little to really understand it, so she just sat in her stroller the whole time. This year it was a little different. We got there about half an hour early and the mall was already crowded. And I mean CROWDED!!! It took us about 10 minutes just to find parking space. I’ve never seen it this packed before. Seriously. There was already a bunch of people around the tree. Some even had blankets of the ground. I guess they were sitting there for a while.

A wanted to be held. After a few minutes of holding her she wanted to go down and walk around. Then being held, then walk, etc. L at first wanted to sit on Viktor’s shoulders, then after A was out of the stroller, he wanted to sit in the stroller. And so he sat there the rest of the time. When the lights went off and the music started playing, I thought that L might get scared again. I tried holding his hand, but he didn’t want to. He was just sitting there and watching. He did not want to be held. The tree lit up and L started clapping. Then it started snowing. It was bubble snow. Then all the way on the top in one of the balcony’s, one of those smoke things started blowing and guess who we saw?! A SANTA!!! I wasn’t sure if L could see it, so I grabbed him out of the stroller, lifted him up and showed it to him. He started waving right away. The look on his face was priceless!!! He wasn’t even blinking. Just waving and looking at Santa. He talked about him the rest of the night.

Since we were at the mall and I did have some coupons with me from Bath & Body Works I had to stop by there. Viktor took the kids for a walk around the mall. After a little bit Viktor came back with Lukas singing HO HO HO out loud. It was too cute! Turns out when they were walking around, they saw Santa up close and personal and L was sucking on a candy cane that Santa gave him. He was super happy as it was his first time seeing Santa up close.

Here are a few pics.