Merry Christmas Eve!

Pla Shee plays Jingle Bells!

North Park Mall

A trip to the mall has become a major excursion nowadays, and most of the time it is a lot more trouble than it's worth.  But as a person who goes stir crazy after staying home with three kids for more than about 24 hours, I had my fill yesterday, so today we ventured to NorthPark Mall.  I'm not much of a "mall" person, and I'm definitely not much of a shopper, but North Park is special because it's the mall that I used to go to as a kid.  And while it's changed A LOT, it's also very much the same.

There's still the big fountain where kids drape themselves over the concrete rim.  There's always that one kid whose parents either don't care or aren't watching who runs around the rim and with the slightest misstep could fall face first into the fountain.  When I was little, I think the fountain used to have lights in it that made it change colors, and I thought it would shoot water really high sometimes, but it doesn't do those things any more.  Maybe it just seemed bigger because I was little?

Anyway, there's the fountain.  And there's Scrooge, who is a puppet that leans out of the window at the top of his house jarring and joking with his adoring fans every hour during the holidays.  But most importantly, there's Santa.  Otherwise known as "THE REAL SANTA."  He's the Santa that's been at North Park for more than 20 years.  He has his PhD in Counseling.  According to Pla Shee's explanation today, the other Santas (the ones at other malls, the one that came to his school, etc.) report to this main Santa, who comes to North Park during the day to meet with children, and flies back to the North Pole in the evenings to get his sleigh ready for Christmas.

Needless to say, we were looking forward to putting in a good word to Santa today.  Unfortunately we were not the only family to have this brilliant idea.  When we got to Santa's photo studio at the mall at 12:30, we were told that our assigned time to have our moment with THE REAL SANTA would be 8:30 this evening. 

Umm...no.  On to Plan B.  Plan B=Take a handful of pennies, close your eyes, think of all of your Christmas wishes, and chuck the pennies in the big fountain.  Legend has it that Santa gets the message that way, too.  :)

A tired little boy...

On Sunday I left Aaron at home with Ruby (Pla Shee was in Dallas visiting his first family), and Kai and I braved the cold to do a little Christmas shopping.  This year 95% of the gifts we give will be homemade, but the presents from Santa will be purchased.  I neglected to take into account that our shopping excursion coincided with Kai's naptime.  As you can see from the picture*, he did not let shopping interfere with his napping plans.  He was sound asleep! :)

*Please note that despite the fact that the cart is from Wal-Mart, we were not actually shopping at Wal-Mart.  We were at Big Lots (which probably isn't a lot better, if we're being honest).  If you want to know more about why we boycott Wal-Mart, check out the excellent (and entertaining) documentary below.

What Christmas is really all about

This past Sunday we celebrated Christmas with our "favorite" Karen family, and had a blast.  One of my coworkers, Beverly, and her husband, Bob, brought gifts for half of the family, and we brought gifts for the other half.  It was so much fun decorating the tree with ornaments that our friend Holli donated, opening presents, and then learning how to use the presents they received.  We are constantly laughing because we do a lot of pantamiming due to the language barrier.  They were most confused by the nightlight in the shape of a soccer ball (hard to explain the purpose of a night light to a family who lived the whole of their lives until a year ago without electricity).  Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we realized that Christmas is a time to remember those you love, and we love them!

Aaron & Ta Paw

Hae Blu Moo

Top row (l to r): Caroline, Aaron, Diane, Ta Paw, Pi Pi, Aye Aye, Beverly, Bob

Bottom row (l to r): Moo Blu Htoo, Moo Kae Blut, Hae Blu Moo, Moo Moo, Kai