The Holiday Express

Last year, Josh had two train rides with Santa. First, we took the Polar Express out of Hood River, a two-hour round-trip drive from Portland. The Polar Express followed the story from the book, with servings of hot chocolate, a reading from the book, and then our arrival at the North Pole, where Santa and his elves got on board and came through the train, taking pictures and visiting with each child, and handing out bells as well. Josh loved it. (Lucas was only 6 months old, so he could take it or leave it).

But then, he was also invited on a second train ride in Portland with his buddy Ben, in which Santa also came through and handed out candy canes. It seemed to us that he loved them equally, and really only remembered "Santa" and "train." So this year, we saved ourselves the drive and only booked the local Holiday Express ride. We went last weekend, on a frigid night that seemed much too cold at the time, but it has been snowing ever since (a rarity in Portland, which hardly ever gets snow and never gets 7 days of snow in a row!) so I guess we were lucky.

Here are Josh and Ben after we boarded:



and Mommy and Lukie:



Here comes Santa!! It was very fun seeing him make his way toward us, the boys could barely contain their excitement:



A big hug from Josh:



And nothing but tears from Lukie! (again--he also cried when we saw Santa for their picture earlier in the month)