A Christmas Surprise

Last year, we surprised the kids with a trip on the Polar Express. We paid a little extra to become members of the railroad in order to avoid the lottery and buy tickets in advance. This year we decided just to take our chances with the lottery. Then, in early November, we realized that we had forgotten all about the lottery and had missed our chance to purchase tickets. However, out of curiosity, Josh went online to read about it and discovered that we could still get seats on weeknights in early December. We excitedly bought the tickets for December first and began planning for the kids' surprise.

On Tuesday, I let Becca and Ben stay in their pajamas all day and then convinced them that they needed to change into clean pajamas to pick Hannah up at school. We drove through the pick-up line, and I told Hannah that today was "Jammie Day," and she could change into her pajamas as soon as she got home from school. Josh was supposed to come home at 4:00, but he got tied up on a phone call. "Uh, oh," I told the kids, "I was going to go get dinner after Daddy came home, but he's going to be late, so I'm going to have to bring you all in your jammies." I took them all through the drive-thru at McDonald's just as Josh came home from work. When we got back to the house, I called Josh on the cell phone to "convince" him to come drive around with us to look at Christmas lights. He finally agreed, and we began our drive to Cleveland for the train ride, pointing out lights along the highway as we drove. The kids began whining to use the bathroom about 10 minutes from the station, so we told them we were driving to a place where we knew there would be restrooms. As we pulled into the station, Hannah noticed the sign and started screaming in excitement, "It's the Polar Express! We're going on the Polar Express!"

We really enjoyed the train ride, just like last year. We got seats in the dome car this time, so we were a bit more comfortable, and the windows extended across the ceiling as well as the sides, which gave us a lovely view of the full moon as we rode. The kids snuggled up in their blankets in the beginning, while an elf read The Polar Express over the loudspeaker and we followed along in our copy of the book.

Once the train picked up a little speed, the elves brought around hot chocolate (at a much more drinkable temperature than last year) and delicious chocolate chip cookies.

Finally, we reached the "North Pole." The elves handed out paper towels for the kids to wipe the condensation off of the windows as the train slowly moved into the station, full of lights and actors dressed as elves and Christmas characters.

After about fifteen minutes, the train began moving back along the tracks towards the first station.

To help pass the time, the elves led Christmas carols, which Hannah enjoyed very much.

Santa also came around and gave each kid a souvenir sleigh bell to bring home, pausing to autograph our The Polar Express book as well.

Ben mostly just stared out the window, and Becca alternated between snuggling on my lap and bouncing off the walls!

We arrived at the station a little after 9:00pm, and began the long journey home. Becca slept, but Hannah and Ben somehow stayed awake for the whole car ride. Sleepily, the kids trudged up the steps into the house, where they saw our Polar Express train set, which Josh had put together in the living room while the kids and I were out getting dinner. After a few minutes of playing with the train, the kids finally crashed in their beds around midnight! Needless to say, Hannah slept in instead of going to school on Wednesday, but we all enjoyed having a wonderful surprise family outing to kick off our Christmas celebration this year.