Christmas in the Square

It has been a weekend of fun...cold, but fun. I know for most people 40 sounds like a day at the beach, but let me just say that last week it was 70! It has been a big jump this week and we are still adjusting to WINTER.

Friday's are always "Fun Friday". There are so many things to do during the week, that we designated Friday's as "Yes" day. They get to come home from school and play as long as they want. We usually do homemade pizza or nachos or something fun for dinner. We watch movies and eat popcorn. It is an afternoon and evening that is less hurried and simply lets them have fun. A lot of times we throw out suggestions or options and really leave it up to them to choose. Dollar Movie Theater, a Read In at school, night at the park as a family, or swimming at the pool in the summer.

Every year, Frisco does a HUMONGOUS light display in the square. All the lights are set to music and you drive around, or park like we did, and tune your radio to their station and watch the light display. So we had dinner and then the girls put on their fleece jammies and we all jumped in the car with popcorn to go watch the lights. I had forgotten the camera, but had my phone so took this one with my phone which explains the poor quality, but they were sticking their heads out the sunroof watching all the lights. We listened to all the songs at least once!

They do have some ads in the middle and they said that Santa would be coming tomorrow and they would light the big tree, so we all agreed to come back tonight. Last year, we just happened to be at the library that night. We walked out to our car just in time to see Santa parachute down to the square. Fun times. This year, there were about 100,000 MORE people there. I couldn't believe it! I absolutely hate crowds, and even more so in the cold, but we braved it since we were actually there and had promised. We were standing about 20 feet from Santa when he came out to take pictures in his sleigh. You'll notice that I didn't take a picture of our kids with Santa. I snapped this as he was sitting down, but the line was already so long, that we decided to skip it. We don't really DO Santa, but he is fun to talk about and read about, so skipping it was easy for the kids.
We did get pictures with the less popular "Frosty" and "Rudolph".
And Ebenezer Scrooge
They actually shut down the entire square to cars and had local merchants set up outside handing out tattoos and candy canes and drink coozies and stuff. So the girls had a bag full of stuff at the end.
We waited in line for the balloon artist. It took like 20 minutes for him to make 5 things because he was making really hard penguins and such. People were leaving the line it was taking so long. I tried to talk the girls into easy ones, so we could get going. Did I mention it was SOOOOOOOO COLD! And Aubrey, who had been sleeping in the stroller/carseat, was now awake and not happy that she was tucked away in the stroller. ( I forgot her hat and mittens, so not dressed to be out on such a night). So I asked the guy for "easy" choices. Ella picked a 30 second sword. Kate picked a 3 minute lady bug! Oh well. Alice really wanted the 5 minute penguin and decided to go without since she couldn't have what she wanted!
We didn't even stay for the tree lighting since we were all so cold! We high tailed it home for some hot chocolate (always served with marshmallows) and some dinner. I'm sure that every chance we get in the next few weeks we will drive by and see the light/music display and their eyes will light up over the beauty of it all. I love this time of year, when simple, twinkling lights, make them all so happy:) Even Aubrey really seemed to enjoy the lights.