Christmassy in the City

Here's a glimpse of the lovely Christmassy family day we had on Saturday gone...

We caught the train into the City; Scrag loves trains. We admired the backs of buildings and "artistic" graffiti along the way; Scraggy smiled and called out "toot toot!". Other passengers smiled indulgently...

We disembarked at our flash shiny space-age train station (too bad the trains are old, single tracked and never come on time. But our central station is shiny!)

Walking up the Main Street we looked for Christmas cheer; Mr G decided to make our own and turned our stroll into a Top Secret Commando Mission. He and Dash patrolled Queen Street with their (umbrella) rifles at the ready. OK, totally un-PC but man it was funny. Watch out for bogies! Sniper at 6 o-clock! Good choice of L.P. (lookout point) son!

We refreshed the troops with coffee and muffins and continued our mission: to visit the Enchanted Forest on the top Floor of Smith and Caugheys. Our spies (a.k.a Meg) report that it's well worth a visit.

The giant Santa on the Whitcoulls building impressed the Scrag. "Ta-ta! Ta-ta!" he called, pointing excitedly. Passersby smiled indulgently...

The Smith & Caughey department store had these great windows... Mouseville at Christmas; animated puppets and Christmas scenes. Sooooo cool.

We stood there admiring the windows for a good long while... and then ventured to the 6th floor where the lift opened to reveal..... a mass of sweating bodies, irritable kids and weary parents who patiently waited in the one hour long queue.

Not us, baby. We turned right back around and figured we'd come back another day when the queue was shorter (the promise of an icecream sealed a peace treaty).

Back home on the train; watching for snipers and bogies and targets all the way of course. Mission accomplished - a feel-good family Christmas outing in the City... even if we turned back at the final hurdle.



Christmas Movie Night

At night-time big cousin Joel joined us for a Christmas Movie night. Joel is 14, an only child, and a lover of all things Christmassy. Even though he is a teenager, apparently he is not too cool to come and hang out with his little cousins on a Saturday night. Yay!

First things first: we added bling to the Christmas Decorations I made the kids out of leftover scraps of felt. The kids wrote their names (plus one for Scrag and cousin Joel) and I stitched over the top of their writing; then sewed the edges together with a contrasting colour embroidery thread and stuffed them with the guts of an old unravelled bear.

Some $2 packets of jewels applied with a hot gun (helped by Joel) and I think the result is pretty special. These will go into the kids' collections; a homemade decoration this year instead of a bought one. I love them.

We turned on the Christmas lights, put on our Santa hats and snuggled down to watch our favourite Christmas movie - Polar Express.

We love this movie, watch it every Christmas. It's got great graphics, a warm fuzzy story and stars Tom Hanks in umpteen different roles. Joel had never seen it before and I think he imagined he would have to suffer through something babyish and pretty lame. But he actually really enjoyed it (or else he's really really good at enthusiastic faking).

At Intermission we had Hot Chocolate (of course) served in our best cups by Mr G...

When it was dark we woke up sleepy Scrag and headed out to see all the Christmas lights at Franklin Rd. The whole street decorates their homes and they have coffee vendors, sausage sizzles, music... it all feels like one giant Christmas street party.

We just drove the length of the road with the windows down (hence the sucky photos). Next year I hope we will walk it, when Scrag's a bit older.

It was wonderful having our lovely cousin over to share our movie night. Having him with us made it all the more special and festive... So now I am feeling all warm and fuzzy and Christmas Spirit-y.

How about you?? What do you do to get into the Christmas Mood? What's your favourite Christmas movie??