All Aboard The Polar Express!!

Each year L & N Train Depot hosts a Polar Express, and tickets seem to fly off the shelves. I have tried to take Miss Charli in the past years but they sell out so quickly. Thankfully, my Mother in law heard about a ticket giveaway they were having and stood in line in early November along with her Husband to get all of us tickets to attend.

 

On Thanksgiving she gave the grandkids bags to open filled with jammies and slippers to surprise them with the trip! She picked out the cutest gown for Charli, and those fuzzy slipper boots.. Char was in girlie girl Heaven!

 

We didn't hear the end of just how excited Charli was to attend. She absolutely loved The Polar Express movie, so she knew that she would enjoy this. Plus anytime that she gets hot cocoa and cookies is a big treat!

When we arrived at the depot, the littles that were big enough enjoyed their cookies and cocoa. While Bryar spent his time being carried around by Papaw checking things out. He is in a stage of wanting to touch everything.

At 6:15 exactly the conductor came into our room for all of us to "all aboard!"

All 9 of us then headed onto the train to find our seats. After some major rule reading that made me super nervous like "If you baby starts to feel fussy, please escort them to the back, calm he/she down then join us again." Haha My boy is very loud in general, with no fussiness involved.

 The awesome narrator started reading the book, and came table to table to show pages along the way.

 

He was truly amazing, and all of the children listened so well! Minus my future ball player Bryar who was throwing my phone and tickets across tables.

My favorite part of the night was when we were leaving and there was a special guest to greet us. Oh my word, he was the most amazing Santa, ever! Bryar was not a huge fan of the jolly ole fella, so this made me super excited to go have his photo made with him soon. The crying fit Santa photos are my absolute favorite! Charli was so excited to see him, even though she was little shy. She was even more thrilled that he gave her "the first gift of Christmas" which was a bell to ring.

 

As soon as we walked out, my dear big kid of a Husband had a twinkle in his eye and said "I think I believe again. That man was to real to not be Santa" :)

 

 

We entered back into the depot and played with the model trains for a while. Before heading back out to the train to try and catch Mr. Claus again.

 

 

But he was no where to be found.....

 

When we left Charli asked if that was the real Santa. We have told her that Santa has helpers because he cannot be at all locations at the same exact time. She also wanted to know if Frosty was real. Curtis answered that by telling her that the story has been around for so long that he had to be real because were else would a story like that come from. What do you tell or plan to tell you kids when they get older? I plan to always let my babies believe in Santa, for as long as I can. But they must also know the real reason we celebrate Christmas as well.

Hopefully this will be a yearly tradition for our family from no own. We all really enjoyed it and are in the Christmas spirit. We plan to go cut our tree soon and will have Christmas decor up this weekend when the weather warms up!