Getting into the Christmas spirit

Now that it's December, we are in full fledged Christmas spirit.  The house is now completely decorated for Christmas (Braden finished the outside lights today, so will have to post decorating pics later).  We put up our 2 fake Christmas trees.  I need to plug in the pine tree scent my mom gave me, so it feels sort of like real trees. I saw a sign at one of the places selling real trees that said "Support North Carolina not China.  Buy a NC tree".  I thought that was a good sign, though it didn't change my mind.

Last night we headed to Durham for the "Santa Train" at the life and science museum.  We met up with Doug, Lynette, Ada, and Harper there and then afterwards went for dinner.  Although it was almost 60 degrees yesterday, the temperature did fall pretty fast, but still wasn't TOO bad.  They had hot chocolate for everyone, you could make your own reindeer food, and Blythe got her face painted.  Brynn enjoyed her free candy cane. The train ride was fun.  About halfway through, we stopped at an area that was all decorated with lights and Santa was there.  He went to each and every seat to ask each kid what they wanted for Christmas.  When he got to Blythe, she told him she wanted a purple guitar (despite us trying to convince her she wanted a PINK guitar).  When he got to mine and Ethan's seat, Ethan told him he wanted a blue bike.  That was after Brynn freaked out and yelled "NOOOO!!!" right in Santa's face.  This picture was taken right after that (notice Brynn as far away from Santa as she could possibly get):

After we left the Santa area, the kids had to keep their eye out for Rudolph's red nose, because Rudolph had run away earlier in the day.  Fortunately, the kids spotted the red nose and told Rudolph to go home.  Anyway, it was a good family affair to get into the spirit of Christmas.

A couple of weeks ago, Grams sent us some pre-printed Santa letters for the kids to fill out, color, and put stickers on.  Fortunately for us, the town of Cary has a "Santa Mailbox" that has been designated by Santa as a pickup spot for all letters to Santa.  So today the kids filled theirs out and and we went up to the Town Hall to find the Santa Mailbox.  Now we just anxiously await his reply.