So many lights

December flies, every year, and this year is no exception.  If anything, it is faster.   Life is faster.  Our little ones are faster, and louder, and more full of life every day and keeping up with them can fill a day in itself.  Days that are already full, of work and cleaning and shopping, birthdays and laundry and now, preparing the house for Christmas too.

And, full of light.

Last weekend Nat and I had an overnight-sans-kids planned.  We were going to go out to hear a band!  And clean the house!

It was going to be great.

Then our Ivy girl came down with a fever and some sniffles and a bad case of up-eight-times-a-night.  We thought it best we not share that joy for an overnight with Gram.  But, we did take advantage of an afternoon to ourselves in Lakewood.  The day was warm and clear and we decided to just walk around and explore.  As it happened,  Saturday was the annual Light Up Lakewood event, and our afternoon of wandering was imbued with instant festivity, carols piped through loudspeakers over the street, which was closed to traffic and gradually filling with cocoa-sipping wanderers like ourselves.  Free hot cocoa, I'll have you know. We tried on winter hats, looked at antiques, and got some Christmas shopping done. We had dinner out, just the two of us.  Burgers.  It was grand.

And then my mom joined us with the kids, as dark settled in and every resident of Lakewood headed out.  Like some great pilgrimage towards a little stage with a horrible PA system and amateur announcers, where we waited patiently for the lights to come on.  And they did and it was magic, trees and bushes suddenly festooned and glowing, and then the night sky alight with fireworks and the street around us aglow with faces full of wonder.

Beats watching a band, any day.

 

And-- more light this Thursday at Wintershow!  One of my favorite days of the year (right up there with Canine Fun Days and Fake Christmas Morning), Thursday was member's night at Wintershow and the gardens greeted the night with radiance.  We were treated to brilliant white-light trees at every turn, the magnificent creativity of the Gingerbread house display, animatronic elves and a North Pole village.  We wished at the Wishing Tree and took a train ride through the peppermint forest, ate cookies and peeked nervously at Santa.  We reveled in the company of our friends and enjoyed running into a great assortment of people we know.  We spent an inordinate amount of time in a quiet, kid friendly room decorated with evergreens, faux campfires, and toys.  We almost didn't leave the Winter Scene, a most magical room filled with moving, glittering green lights and a brilliant, snowy aspen grove, echoing with winter wind and sleighbells.  (Oh how I wish I could have captured that room on film!)  The line for the train was too long and it was really crowded this year and I missed the model trains... but it was still perfect.  It was Wintershow.

The Christmas season can now officially begin.

A few more photos for you, of birthdays and other random moments from the past few weeks....

Goodnight and peace unto you all...