Polar Express

Sunday night we traveled to Calera (just outside of Birmingham) to an event called the Polar Express. Jeff, Anderson and I along with 70 of our friends...yes, you read correctly 70...boarded a passenger train and headed to the "North Pole". As we settled in for our train ride the lights were dimmed and the book The Polar Express was read over the loudspeaker. About 20 minutes later we magically arrived at the North Pole that was all lit up with Christmas lights. You could even see Santa's workshop. At that point Santa, Mrs. Claus and several elves boarded the train. We sang Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman and several other Christmas songs as the elves gave each child a gift and a sleigh bell to use during the caroling. Santa came over to each family individually to talk to the children and take pictures. Then the elves served us chocolate milk and cookies for our ride back to the station.


Since we had so many people in our group we were actually given our own train car, which came in very handy since Anderson made really good use of the aisles! He ran up and back during most of the ride. I was really glad I knew all of the people in our car so that I could give Anderson a little freedom and not spend the whole ride trying to contain him in a seat!! He was a little hard to handle at a few points during the night, but there were also some really sweet moments that made me glad we went even if we were concerned that he might be a bit young for the event. Anderson loved the caroling. He clapped and screeched with delight as we sang Jingle Bells and the look on his face when he got a cookie from an elf was priceless (he never gets sweets). However, as I feared he was not a big fan of Santa. He seemed Ok until Santa actually tried to pick him up. He was even very sweetly singing to him, but Anderson just was NOT having any part of it! Oh well maybe next year!