Polar Express

This is long overdue, since we've all recovered from Christmas by now, although just barely. Nonetheless, I still wanted to share a bit about our Polar Express event. It was so much fun! There is a literacy foundation that has been doing the Polar Express rides for the past 13 years now in New Hampshire as a fundraiser for their organization. It is very popular and difficult to get tickets, unless you buy a hotel package through one of the sponsers, which we did to assure we would get tickets. We all dressed in pajamas, yes...Phil and I included. When we boarded the train there were chefs dressed in white coats and hats that served hot chocolate (which ended up spilled on our camcorder bag) and candy. They had lollipops for the kids that were allergic to nuts and couldn't have the nougat chocolates, which we were grateful for. The train ride took about a half hour and was pretty slow since it is done by a scenic railway company. They had a wolf statue along a river that looked real enough in the dark when inside a train. When the train arrived there were about 50 elves (all volunteers) to greet us. Way up on top of the mountain in front of us was a lone house all lit up that they explained was Santa's house. It was very cool. The elves then escorted us a short ways up a hill to what was a theater. On the outside it looked like it was made out of snow. They had a few painted buildings around it, but of course they couldn't create a whole city. It was a very very cold night, so we were glad to go inside the theater. A man came out and read the story to us and then they elves got everyone singing to get Santa to come down. He walked around and interacted with a lot of the kids and picked some of them up and even kissed them. He then picked someone out of the audience to come up for the first gift of Christmas. (it was obvious to the adults that he was planted there because his bath robe was the same bright purple as the story tellers robe.) He of course asked for the bell, but then asked for all the children to receive a bell from his sleigh. We then got back on the train, where each of the children got a bell. It was well done and such fun. I came away believing in Santa Claus! We didn't get many good pictures on our camera because we focused more on the camcorder footage when we had hands available to tape. Since it was dark, very cold, and we had two kids to carry, we didn't get as many good photos as I would have liked. I've included what we got. I also included some photos from the amusement park "Santa's Village" that we went to the next day. Imagine going to an amusement park all dressed in snow gear. We had to go inside every once in awhile to warm up fingers and toes, but there were plenty of things to do inside too. The kids loved swimming at the hotel too. We did this just before Christmas and it really made it all very magical. That is what childhood is all about and I got to experience it again for myself!