A Christmas Carol Train

     All Aboard!  Today we choo-chooed down to Duluth’s train museum – because right there on the tracks was the Christmas Carol Train.  It has been touring the country to promote the new Disney movie coming out in November, and made a stop today just down the road from us.  Madison wore a Christmas shirt, Mommy wore a nice red outfit, and Daddy wore a Scrooged t-shirt.

     Christmas carolers spread yuletide cheer as we waited in line for about forty-five minutes, surrounded by other dedicated parents, children – and several Santas.  To be precise, we had two Santas in front of us (one of which was a Western Santa), and there was another Santa about eight families behind us.  It’s safe to say that on this particular day, the lyrics of the Christmas song are true:  “He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…”  He’s everywhere! 

     While on line, the Santa in front of us ‘caught Madison in the act of being good,’ and promptly gave her a pink coin that said just that.  And then, to further her delight, the snow started to blow out in the breeze (from a snow making machine closer to the engine).

     All aboard!  Madison, Mommy and I hopped aboard and got to walk inside the train, from car to car.  It was a large, traveling exhibit.  First off, were the costumes from the age, which Mommy rather liked.  Then came the models and 3D sculptures of items and places from the movie.  Madison thought those were neat, but she really liked the touch-screen video segments where she got to learn about characters from the book.  Of course, she probably didn’t learn a thing – except how to press buttons on the screen over and over again!

     On display were some interesting Dickens artifacts that dated back to the 1800’s, and an interesting display that shows how movies like “A Christmas Carol” and “The Polar Express” were created.  Look at the picture below - it shows how creative they were with space on the train.  They have a mirror wall there, and half a mannequin set up against the wall.  It's reflection makes it appear as if it is a whole one, sitting there in the chair.  The mannequin, by the way, is set up to show the costume and points that the camera picks up when filming for the movie.

     The highlight of the tour for Madison might be the portion where visitors had their photos taken – and morphed into those of the main characters from the movie.  Daddy had his image converted into Ebenezer Scrooge – and Mommy and Madison both had their photos morphed into Tiny Tim (God bless us, every one!).  Take a look - and watch out for that Scrooge fellow!

     Finally, at the end of the train was a nice place to pose for a family photo.  For those families that brought their own camera, a worker posed us around a table filled with food, prepared by Ebenezer Scrooge himself.  Madison kept eyeing the food there on the table instead of the camera, but everyone smiled as we finally got off the train.  

     Madison had a nice time on board, but the adventure wasn’t over yet:  we climbed aboard other old trains and she had an opportunity to turn knobs and pull levers.  Hopefully one of those levers wasn’t the brake release!

     We purchased a few items for her from the train museum:  they had set up a tent outside where they sold train-related merchandise.  We'll save some for Christmas, but the train whistle was hers right there on the spot.  She blew it all the way home - toot, toot!

     Finally it was time to depart.  But before leaving, we went inside a large inflatable theater they had set up on the premesis.  Inside, we put on our 3D glasses (wish I could show you a picture of Madison with those on!).  Then we saw a feature about "A Christmas Carol," and next an actual segment of the movie, and after that we were on our way.

     It was a really nice day together.  Madison immediately wore her engineer's hat when she got home.  Recently, Mommy found her some clothing to go with the hat, and gave her a Thomas the Train toy as well.  For the rest of the day, our little engineer played with Mommy and stayed on track until it was time to put her little caboose into bed!