The Lee Family: The Official Christmas Tree Lighting

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The Official Christmas Tree Lighting

Yesterday afternoon I loaded up the girls and we headed to the Colleyville City Hall, where the official tree lighting took place at 5:30pm. We arrived around 5pm so we could "get a good spot" and soon discovered that we would likely be joining maybe 50 others, not quite the crowd I expected. In front of City Hall is the tall, skinny tree that is the city's "official" tree with 12 smaller trees decorated by various groups, schools and local organizations, surrounding the big tree. One tree was decorated by the Colleyville Elementary School Brownie/Daisy Troop, so Sofia "had" to get her picture taken in front of it (even though she isn't a Brownie or Daisy). The Colleyville Police had a really cute tree which was surrounded by Dunkin Donut boxes and police tape as the garland. The Colleyville Garden Club also had their tree there, which was a peacock motif and won the "Mayor's Award". All the trees were really cute. Just before 5:30, Mayor Kelly and the City Council members came out, chatted with different people. The Mayor stood in front of the tree and welcomed everyone over the microphone as we all stood in a small semi-circle facing him. The microphone worked for a few minutes and then he resorted to talking loudly so we could all hear. He announced the winners of a few awards before welcoming Santa to turn on the tree lights. The kids went crazy and after he lit the Christmas trees, the kids swarmed him.

After the tree lighting, we headed into the library where there were crafts, food and pictures with Santa. I went straight for pictures with Santa, since I wanted to be sure we got a photo and didn't want to wait in a crazy long line. Luckily it wasn't very crowded and after Santa arrived from downstairs we were the third one to see him. Sofia was excited, but Olivia wasn't quite so sure. I even tried talking him up as we stood in line and told her how nice he is, etc. As we approached Santa, I was holding Olivia and I could feel her legs tighten around me as we got closer. She didn't get upset but it was clear that she wasn't going to let me set her down and definitely not in that bearded guy's lap! So, after Sofia jumped into Santa's lap, I held Olivia and leaned down close to Santa. The photographer captured a good photo and we headed to the craft tables.

The girls made a gingerbread ornament with stickers, Sofia decorated a pair of reindeer antlers, and then we had snacks - cookies, cheese cubes and hot cocoa. We ran into a few friends from school as well as one of my friends from the gym. We were ready to go when Sofia begged for a balloon animal. We stood in line for 45 minutes (!!!!) to get two balloon monkeys for the girls. It was forever, however, I ended up passing the time talking with the man behind me and his granddaughter while Sofia and Olivia played on the computers and with the toys. After they got their balloons they played with them for about 5 minutes before they were bored! Figures! We finally headed home around 7:30 and CK called in pizza that I picked up on the way home. We quickly ate our pizza and then got the girls off to bed. It was a fun evening!

The girls in front of the CES Brownie tree