A Christmas Tree Lighting

Our town does an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony every year.  They light up the large tree in front of the town hall in addition to have a petting zoo, performers, cookies and hot chocolate, and a visit from Santa Clause.  It was supposed to be December 5, but for the 3rd year in a row inclement weather forced the town to push it back.  The rescheduled date was this past Friday, December 12.  It was a little chilly out but not unbearable.

A nice perk that our town does is for the month of December they turn off all the meters to allow people to enjoy their holiday shopping and activities without being required to worry about feeding the meter.  A lot of the neighboring towns do the same.

We, of course, went right for the petting zoo upon arrival.  Marshall loved feeding and petting the animals.  There was also some goats and a llama.  My favorite was the little donkey.  All he wanted was for people to scratch between his ears.

Marshall's reaction when they announced that Santa had arrived and was in route...  he was jumping up and down.

And this is what I got when I asked them to smile... 

Around 5:40pm, with a countdown lead by the mayor, they lit the tree.  The holiday ensemble from the high school also play holiday music.

Once the tree was lit, you could hear the sirens.  Santa arrives every year in a fire truck with a police escort.

2 years ago, Marshall wouldn't go near him, but this year he couldn't wait to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas:  a semi truck with an airplane.  I was surprised that he went right up to Santa Clause and just started talking.  I couldn't get Marshall to smile because he was too busy telling Santa what he wanted, but I was happy to get any kind of picture this year.

Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to catch you up on my December Daily project, which I'm a tad bit behind on.

~AKO