It's Beginning to Look a lot like the HOLIDAYS!

The holidays are upon us - I can tell this because we have started embarking on some of our annual holiday festivities.
Holiday Festivity 1:
Each year we try to attend a holiday show. We used to go see The PNB Nutcracker. Then last year I shook it up a bit and we went to see the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Show.  I love the Rockettes and had always wanted to see their show.  This year we went to see A Christmas Story: The Musical.  It was fantastic! A Christmas Story is Tony's favorite holiday movie.  We are subjected to the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story on TBS every year on Christmas day. When I found out that the Fifth Avenue was doing it as a musical I knew it was the holiday show we HAD to see!!

Tony and Amelia are by the tree (it was a bit dark)

Holiday Festivity 2:

Going to see Santa at Nordstrom flagship store in Downtown Seattle. 

We waited patiently in line for only one hour this year.  

(Previous years we have waited up to 3 hours). 

We do this because the Nordstrom Santa IS the only real Santa!

Shoe Shine!

It's hard to put down a good book!

And then finally it is our turn!!!

I am really hoping the photo that the professional photographer took turns out better than the one's Mrs. Claus  took:

Holiday Festivity 3:

Riding the downtown Holiday Carousel.

Unexpected Holiday Festivity for this Year:

SNOW DAYS - 2.5 days of school cancelled, 1 day of work cancelled, lots of snow, and some sledding and celebrating in the freezing cold.

Just a Festivity: (not really a Holiday Festivity, but nonetheless a "Festivity")

On Veteran's Day we went to see the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.  In my continued effort to inspire culture and creativity in my family, I thought this seemed like a great opportunity.  

Two fatal flaws with my plan were: 

-Since it was a holiday it was PACKED with people (I really hate crowds and other people breathing my air). I thought since they make you buy a ticket for a specific time, that they would limit the number of people for each time slot.  It seemed they calculated the number of people for each time slot by taking the amount of people allowed per the fire code regulations and then squeezing in 10 more people per time slot.

-I should investigate the artist prior to embarking on a cultural experience.  Picasso's subject matter was not the most appropriate artistic venue for the 9 year old (and in some cases the teenager or the 40ish folk).  Amelia put together the fact that Picasso lead a very exciting life and that he had 2 mistresses at one time.  She increased her vocabulary with words such as promiscuous and phallic. She also discovered that the painting her art teacher has in the art room is one of his mistresses- "Do you think my teacher knows that is his mistress that is in the artroom"!

The day ended with a lunch of fudge and chocolate at Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory and a stop by the "Gum Wall" in Seattle on our way back to the car.  What is a gum wall you ask? It is disgusting - it is a wall under Pike Place Market that people put chewed gum on - and some of it is shaped into designs and words.  Not sure how this began - it is so disgusting I cannot bring myself to look it up. I could almost feel the germs emanating from the wall - EWWWWW!!

The only picture we took to chronicle our day of creativity and culture:

Amelia by the Gum Wall