Night of Lights

This morning started with KidPak, and another skit with the Grinch.  You can see him to the left there, or see "her" to the left there - we used our cast member Victoria, who has just been perfect in her role.  The Whos of Whoville weren't quite sure how to react to the Christmas gifts that the Grinch was giving out, and not quite ready to forgive the Grinch for ruining Christmas.  But the real message of Christmas is love and forgiveness, as that is what the first and greatest gift was all about. 

It was a good morning, a great one.  Pastor Lance did our traditional reading of Luke, chapter 2, and the kids heard once again the story from scriptures no doubt being read from churches all over.  We were glad to be able to do a skit as well, and of course there were KPTV videos, including the one we filmed at our house a few years ago, one where Mommy is desperately trying to escape some slightly aggressive Christmas carolers.  

After church, as promised, we went to see a movie.  The promise was this:  "If you get an A on your test this week, we'll go see 'Spider-man' at the movies."  And as you know, Madison got that A.  She got a 100 on her social studies final, and a 92 on her math final.

So we went to see "Spider-man:  Into the Spider-Verse," and it was a really amazing movie.  The animation was really innovative, just as if you were reading a comic book.  And the story was really strong as well.  It was a packed theater, but we had some nice seats in the back, and of course the popcorn.  We saved some money on the way in with the rewards card, so that was a plus as well.

So this year, we hadn't really had an opportunity to go and see any lights yet.  We do have tickets to see something later on next weekend, but tonight - before Christmas - we decided to make a small drive over to a subdivision in our county named Ashebrooke. 

It was insane!  There was a massive amount of slow moving traffic, and that was fine so that we could take in all the lights.  There were so many more lights than any other neighborhood we've ever seen, so many more lights than Lake Lanier Islands or something like that.  It was just house after house of Christmas lights, each one with so many decorations outside.  The one above was themed to "Christmas Vacation," complete with a cousin Eddie in the front yard.  This one below is known as "The Gingerbread House," and had a lot of people stopping in front of it for pictures.

And this one below had a radio station complete with synchronized lighting and imagery on a Christmas tree and elsewhere that was actually related to the song playing.

For example, Santa would show up playing a guitar.  It was pretty awesome.  We got there, and had a moment to just take in an entire song.  And then it was time to move on.  It took us about an hour and a half just to get through this entire neighborhood, and the lights went on and on and on.  There were inflatables everywhere, like this Santa on an elephant.

Another place had an inflatable AT-AT and several Star Wars characters in their yard.  It went on and on and on, and by the time we were done we certainly had our fill of Christmas lights for the season.  Again, we're heading off to see something else next weekend, but this was certainly fun.  We had our Christmas music playing, and Madison was sticking her head out the window, as were many of the kids and families.  It was a lot of fun!

We got home later, but still did our reading tonight from Luke, from the devotional, and from a few Christmas stories as well.  We've been reading some Christmas books, a few classics we've had all these years, like "A Pirates Night Before Christmas" and "Shoey and Dot's Christmas" and a few others.  We were tired, as it was a full day, and it wasn't too much later we were off to sleep for a long winter's nap!