Christmas in Georgia

Today was a whopper of a day!  We crammed in quite a bit - and look how it started out, with Jingle Bell getting a major award!  It says where it is from on the side:  Fra-gee-lay!  This was one of those things that Madison didn't quite get, having not seen the movie yet.  She knows that ornament is on the tree - it's a new one from last year.  She thinks Jingle wants to pack it up or something.  And maybe he does?

Anyway, first thing this morning, Madison and Daddy were on a quest:  

That's right:  Santa Cow was back.  This is our third consecutive year of seeing Santa Cow, and we're laughing about the photos that they make for us.  We have all these photos of Madison and Santa in our living room, but there are two of Madison with Santa Cow from last year, right up there with the others.  Soon, there'll be three (when we go to pick up the photo on Tuesday).  Anyway, it was a nice little trip to Chick-Fil-A to grab breakfast, and a few other treats on top of that.  It's just a nice morning thing to do.

And we thought for the afternoon, the thing to do was finally go to see Sone Mountain Christmas!  Of course, any trip to Atlanta is going to cost you blood.  That said, it took us a REALLY long time to get there due to accidents, blocked off roads, and I'm not making this up:  a marathon we saw, where people were dressed up as Santa in fat suits, running through the streets of Atlanta.

It was a hot day for such a thing, but I'm sure they enjoyed it.  Anyway, eventually we got to Stone Mountain.  One thing we have to admit:  the lights in the village area were pretty awesome!

The rest of our day consisted of walking through amazingly large groups of people to make it - or in two cases not make it - to various Christmas-themed shows.  The first one happened to be Madison's favorite:  it was a version of "A Christmas Carol," all done rapid-fire with four comic hosts.  There were quite a few lines delivered straight from the classic, but plenty of modern references to get some laughs.  Madison loved that one character told another she looked like Chewbacca.

We also saw "The Littlest Christmas Tree," which again was something Madison liked - although not as much as "A Christmas Carol."  It was a cute show with a skunk, a squirrel, a Christmas tree, I think a rabbit, and a whole bunch of puppets.  One thing we liked about this park was that it didn't hold back on using the word "CHRISTMAS."  It didn't hold back on playing songs that used controversial phrases like "Joy to the world, the Lord is come."  

One thing we didn't like about the park was that the map they gave you was not in any way useful whatsoever.  It was a map of the entire Stone Mountain area, and we just wanted to know where the different venues were for various shows.  Signs exist, but they aren't lit up at night.  End result:  we missed a show or two, and wasted our time trying to catch said shows.  Strike one.

But we did get to see enough to justify our time.  Like the Christmas parade, for example.  Here's one of the characters who came by and had a brief back-and-forth with Madison:

And also there was the Snow Queen.  Or Ice Queen.  Or something like that.  She's got a nice ride down the street - no marching for her!

One of the requirements for the park is riding around on the train.  It's a sing-a-long train that travels around Stone Mountain, which takes about a half-hour or so.  They were supposed to do a presentation called "The Gift" on the other side of the mountain, one that told the Christmas story from the Bible.  But maybe there were too many people or something, and they decided not to do that for us.  Strike two.  Still, the ride was relaxing, as are most train rides.  Seriously, there's just something about a train.  There were Christmas lights along the way, and Madison spotted three deer that were in the woods between us and the mountain.  She has some eagle eyes to see them in those woods.

We got back, and it was getting later, and of course we had just missed another show.  There were approximately 5.6 squillion people there in the park, which translates to 2.3 people per square inch.  Still we were hungry, and opted to go in to grab some overpriced food.  And, as we feared, there was absolutely no options whatsoever for a person with gluten allergies.  Get this:  their french fries have wheat in them.  Their potatoes on a stick had gluten.  The only thing that did not have gluten was a bag of Lay's potato chips.  And some hummus.  But you couldn't use the crackers to dip into the humus, as it had gluten in it.  So anyway, Mommy had nothing to eat, really.  Is that a strike three? 

A nice boy gave Mommy a bag of potato chips, and Madison scarfed a chicken and fries meal, all under the beautiful lights all around us.  Here's a photo of Madison at the table now:

She had a great time.  She was still talking about that Christmas Carol show, in fact.  We left a little early tonight, and got out with no problem.  Until we got to 400, where there was yet another accident that made us spend an extra half-hour on the road.  Why anyone voluntarily lives in that city is beyond me.  You cannot just drive anywhere at all.  You have to sit in traffic all the time.

But we did get home, and it was late.  But we had a great day, filled with Christmas fun.  Seriously, it wasn't that bad.  It wasn't great, but we were wanting to do this for a while and see what it was like.  The lights were the highlight.  The shows were nice, but perhaps the best time to go would be in November when the entire population of Georgia isn't there.

Still, it was a good, Christmas-filled day, from Santa Cow to Stone Mountain.  Christmas in Georgia all the way!