We kicked off the holiday season this past weekend by visiting a local Christmas festival.  This was on my Christmas bucket list from last year and since we didn’t get that accomplished, I figured it would be the best way to get the family into the Christmas spirit.

The fun thing (among many) about celebrating the holidays in Florida is that we get to enjoy all these festivals, events and parties with really great weather.  Olivia decided to wear a thick sweater, hats and gloves more for fashion than necessity (she tells me she misses the changing seasons and the changing fashion of life in New York). 

As soon as we entered the festival we were greeted by a magical unicorn.  Of course, I brought it to the girls’ attention and we waited to take a picture with the pink-haired unicorn.  Tomas brought up an interesting point; if we have to pay, why doesn’t someone else take the picture?  But we’re living in the age of selfies and I do see this trend a lot – we even saw cute holiday-themed selfie stations throughout the festival.  He doesn’t get it but I think it’s a fun gimmick.

We also got to see some Disney princesses sing.  We caught the last few minutes of a Moana performance but were just in time for Julia’s favorite song; Let It Go.  Sadly, the Elsa performer didn’t quite hit those high notes but we cheered her on, sang along and danced in a sea of bubbles.

I loved walking around (read: chasing my children the whole time) and seeing everyone’s “Christmas Spirit.”  People were dressed up in Christmas colors, sporting ugly Christmas sweaters, pretending to be elves and rocking Christmas lights as accessories.  I kept joking with Tomas (because all he could do was think about food the entire time) that his Christmas Spirit was very low and that we needed to turn it around.  I was referencing The Christmas Chronicles which is now one of our new favorite Christmas movies and monitoring people’s “Christmas Spirit” with my watch is going to be my new thing now (if you haven’t seen the movie on Netflix, go watch it!).

In an effort to save everyone’s holiday spirit, we ate dinner so that Tomas wouldn’t turn into a Grinch. After a pitcher of margaritas and some very filling steak fajitas, his Christmas Spirit returned, we we all went home and plopped on the couch for some more Christmas movies.

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