Winter Break has begun!!! The parties are over and we are just days away from Christmas. To try and make these last few days really special ones with our kids, we decided to surprise them with a fun family activity each night until Christmas. About 5:30 tonight I told the kids to get on their pjs. They were quick to do that, because they love to hang out in their pjs all day. Nothing aroused their suspicions. Then I told them to get on some socks. OK? A little odd, but again nothing that made them wonder if something was up. Then, while I was cutting up strawberries and popping some popcorn, I told them to get blankets. Blankets? Now the wondering began. "What's going on?" "Are we going to watch a movie?" "Why do we need blankets?" Their minds started racing as they tried to figure out why I was making all these weird requests. Then I told them to put on their shoes. SHOES?! Now they definitely knew something was up!
I handed them their bowls of strawberries and a fork. I grabbed their waters and their bags of popcorn and told them to head out to the van. As you can see, they had NO idea what was going on!
Once we got in the van (Tater too!), they started eating their snacks and I told them we were headed to go see Christmas lights! They were very excited as we set out on our adventure. We went around our town to look at lights. We headed over to the neighboring town and drove around and then headed for a light display that I was sure would grab their attention in yet another town.
This one is a special one! One so grand and exciting that people line the streets in their cars to see it. They collected monetary and non-perishable food donations as you watch/pass by for the local food pantry. In the 5 yrs they've done this they've raised over $32,000 for the Food Pantry and donated over 10,000 lbs of food! Very cool! We drove up and saw this amazing display. The kids were in awe. They have their own radio station set up with Christmas music that they lights correspond with.
We stopped and watched for quite a while. Santa was at the house here, so we pulled up and dropped off our canned goods and got candy canes from Santa, then pulled over across the street to watch.
The kids were all snuggled up with their candy canes, watching the great light show!
We stayed there, before driving through that neighborhood to and then headed back towards home. All in all we stayed out for over 2 hours, drove through 3 towns, saw tons of light displays - like the one above that was absolutely beautiful! - and sang lots of carols while we drove. It was a super-fun night and only our first day towards our countdown to Christmas. Just four days left before Christmas and three fun days of activities ahead - and all of it is going to be a surprise for the kids! Can't wait to do more!
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