A couple of weeks ago we kicked off the holiday season with a trip to the North Pole aboard the Polar Express. It's really hard to get tickets because it's such a popular event. I had to send a $10 donation and enter a lottery, and on October 22nd they drew names and called people in the order they were drawn. If you didn't answer the phone, you lost your chance to buy tickets. I carried my cell phone around all day, and my heart stopped every time it rang. I had Ginny on back-up with a list of preferred dates, ticket quantities, and credit card numbers. When they finally called at 9:15 PM, I had given up hope so I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to get tickets on an evening ride, for us and the Funsecas. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in North Conway, which has indoor water slides to tire the kids out. Our trip to the North Pole coincided with the ice storm that knocked out power to half of New England, but we were lucky and had fine weather for traveling.
The train ride was as magical as I remembered from my trip with Aliya, Karen, and Vic back in 2005. The kids wore their pjs and the bakers served hot chocolate and chocolates with nougat centers, just like in the Polar Express story. It took about a half hour to get to the North Pole, and we were greeted by about 60-70 elves with their lanterns to help us up the hill to Santa's amphitheater. The elves sang a few carols and then a guy in his robe in pj's read the story about when he was a little boy and went on the Polar Express. Santa made an appearance and walked through the crowd of several hundred, greeting the kids and giving hugs. Then he selected a child (a "plant") from the audience to give the first gift of Christmas. Luckily he didn't choose Adlani because I don't think "SPEED RACER!!!" was the gift request he was looking for. If you're not familiar with the story, the kid asks for a bell from Santa's sleigh, and if you believe in Christmas you can hear the sound of the bell. All of the kids received bells on the ride home.
We did have one small mishap or almost-mishap...Adlani was sleeping in one room with Karen, Shane, and Ginny, while Ben and I were in the other room with Aliya, Vic, and Norah. Around 5 a.m. I woke up out of a dead sleep because I could hear someone crying "Mommy...Mommy" over and over. Adlani had woken up and left Karen's room to find me, and he was out in the hall crying outside my door. Oy. All's well that ends well. And the 50%-off sale on kids' clothes at LL Bean ensured that all ended well.
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