All is Merry and Bright

Last night we had planned to head to the botanical gardens and see them all lit up for Christmas, but Lower Alabama has been dumping rain for days, so we abandoned the plan.  Instead, we found a drive-through light show set up in the parking lot of the local minor league baseball stadium.  At $6 per passenger in the car, I was less than thrilled about this expensive sloppy seconds option, but I’m here to tell you it was pretty amazing.  We drove through various little vignettes – a “field” of “snow” complete with snowmen, a giant “grove” of “trees”, etc.  All of it was linked to the Christmas music broadcast on a local channel, twinkling in time to the beat.  It was really quite spectacular.  Expensive.  But cool, and perfect for a rainy day.

Side note: I usually wake up at the crack of dawn and use the few short minutes before the others wake up to have my “me time.”  This is when I write blogs, or do dishes/clean the house without kids in my hair, or occasionally (if it’s early enough) watch an episode of Twin Peaks.  Anyway, I’d written the above paragraph and then Jack snuck down the stairs and winnowed his way onto my lap.  He asked for a back scratch, so I set the laptop aside and scratched his back and chatted – “me time” was over, but “one-on-one kid time” is almost as good.  (“All three at once kid time” is kind of the worst, I’ll admit – I prefer these monkeys one at a time, when I can actually interact with them in a legitimate way.)  While I did, he read that paragraph, and then he picked up the laptop and typed this message: we saw santa and his elves singing to our music.  Then he said “what is this message for?”

Now they’re all up, so I have to cut short my musing.  Long story short – the lights were nice, Liam also had a Christmas party Friday which I went to and he loved, and he had a Christmas pageant Thursday night which was cute (he and all the other little boys in glasses were the three wise men), and Jack’s party was Tuesday because his teacher left on vacation after that and the Professor went to that one and tells me it was cute, and today I have a little work party and I have to go make cinnamon rolls for it, and tomorrow we light the advent candle at church, and then I somehow have to work two more days next week while everyone else is off on break.

THe boys are doing some sort of McGyver thing to the baby in his crib upstairs.  Gotta go.