#66 – 1000 Awesome Things

Santa

Yes, I’m Jewish. I believe in Santa anyway – deal with it. Mommy does, too. (and she’d like a house this year, just like he delivered to Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street. She’s been really, really good. Mostly.) Anyway, on Saturday, I went with Grammy Boo & Coach and Grandma & Grandpa to meet Santa on the Polar Express!

Mommy knew she wanted to take me on a Santa Train this year, and she did a *lot* of research on which ones were the best. The one in New Hampshire is, apparently the gold standard, but that’s a bit far for this year – definitely not doable in a day trip. There’s one in Rockland County, too, but it was only running on one day and we weren’t available.

I know going on the Santa Train *before* Thanksgiving is somewhat ridiculous, but can you believe that it’s the ONLY day that all of us were available? We ended up going to New Hope, which is an annual trip for Mommy and Daddy anyway.

First, we met up with Grandma & Grandpa at Lilly’s in Lambertville, and then we all went over the bridge to meet Grammy & Coach at the train station.

There, we ran into a little snafu… Mommy had purchased tickets for the 3:00PM train online – but there was some glitch on the website; the 3:00PM train was not a Santa Train. Our options were to go on that one (without Santa), or hang around for the Big Guy, who would be on the 5:15 train. Oh, and the 5:15 train was more than double the price.

After Mommy almost burst into tears (she hates when plans go awry and does not really adapt to change well), she complained to the manager who agreed to let us go on the 5:15 trip for no additional charge.

While we were waiting, we got to walk around and do some window shopping in New Hope.

I walked with Coach and Grandpa…
posed with a sign…
climbed on a statue…

By the way, any guesses on what that thing is? Dinosaur? Dog? Some sort of weird…bear? Also? Don’t I have the cutest Daddy?

…and even drove a little.

Finally, it was time to go back to the train station! I gave the conductor our tickets and away we went!

A note on the New Hope Polar Express: We had an excellent time, but Mommy is not sure she would have paid the full price for it… For the cost of the ticket, we got a bag of Amos’s chocolate chip cookies, hot cocoa (lukewarm cocoa, more like – there was NO danger of anyone burning themselves if they spilled theirs on the moving train), and a bell from Santa (just like in the book). During the one hour trip, Santa and Mrs. Claus visited us and there was also an elf playing the banjo and singing some Christmas songs. Again, we did not regret staying for the later train at all, but probably $34 is an awful lot for what you get.

I had such a great time on the train, though!

I looked out the window with Grandpa…
played the drums on Grandma’s cup…
.. and sat on Grammy’s lap.
We had an AWESOME day!