Almost Christmas Eve

Our traditional Christmas Eve activities were moved up one day this year, to the 23rd. We typically go downtown, see all the Christmas decorations in the big hotels, eat a nice lunch, watch ice skating and finish up any last minute shopping. And typically it's not very crowed, being Christmas Eve, but this year it was pack downtown because it was two days before Christmas. But we made the most of it, trying to squeeze in all our activities and then some!
The children were mesmerised by the turning gingerbread castle and train in the St. Francis

Checking out all the Christmas trees...
A little last minute shopping...we stopped at William Sonoma and caught a cooking demo! And Timo wants to add this massage chair from Brookstone to his Christmas list!
The San Francisco Shopping Center had a really cool light show under the dome. I caught everyone enjoying the show...
It was on to lunch at our traditional Scala's restaurant. We've been going there for the past four years and it's nice when they remember you when you walk in the door. My friend, Tim, is also the pastry chef here and it's always nice to see him too!
The kids love this place, they have paper on the table so they get to color their color sheets AND on top of the table. Add a little pizza, ice cream and hot chocolate, the kids were in heaven!


We had to skip the skating rink, closed for cleaning, and strolled around taking in the sights while we waited for the sun to set and the Christmas lights to light up.
After sunset we drove down to see the lights in south San Francisco. One neighborhood really comes together and puts on an amazing show!

Sacked out after a full day of Christmas time! Both Timo and Cameron feel asleep while driving around so Young and I took the opportunity to continue driving and looking at the city lit up for Christmas. It was so nice driving and having uninterrupted conversation...

Box Fun!

Tis the season for boxes to be arriving at the house, and yes, some of them are somewhat large...large enough for a 3 year old's imagination! We got four full days of entertainment out of these two boxes...here is their evolution. Day 1, we have an airplane and a rocket ship!
They decided they needed to decorate their planes by adding some wheels on the outside and controls on the inside.

Day 2...a pirate ship! Two pirates looking for treasure!
Day 3...Timo's plane becomes a kayak. I have no idea where he has learned what a kayak is but he seemed to know exactly what to do with wrapping paper tube.

Day 4...an artiest's canvas. Nothing like markers and a wide open pallet to draw on! Seems like the perfect way to send these boxes out to the recycling...with rainbows and race cars all over them.

Magical Christmas Time

Last Saturday Young was out town so I took the kids out for some Christmas time cheer! We started our day at Grace Cathedral for the Christmas Family Sing-a-long followed by a Magical Tea at Top of the Mark. We had so much fun, I think we'll be making this an annual family outing...and make sure Daddy comes next year!
The sing-a-long was a lot of fun. The actual show was short (about 45mins), and we sang all the song the kids knew. Cameron sang along...Timo decided to just listen. The basic story was all these toys searching for the true meaning of Christmas. So all the characters were constantly walking back and forth in front of us. Timo's favorite was the Ninja and Cameron just adored the Princess.

A mom always comes prepared with snacks just in case things run a little long...the show wasn't long but there was along wait after the show to meet characters and sit on Santa's lap. We had snacks and walked around to look at the beautiful stain glass windows in the church.

And of course we waiting all that time, finally walked up the characters and the kids got shy! Cameron did give Santa a high-five but no lap this time.
I'm sure if you ask the kids what they like most about Grace Cathedral they would say the steps! They walked all the way up and down at least 10 times.

Ah, to be a kid again and find fun in anything that you do...
The Fairmont Hotel is right next to where we were having tea so we walked inside to check out the Christmas decorations. Wow, they had a life size gingerbread house!
We stopped in at the Santa station and wrote our letters and dropped them in the box.

Then we walked across the street the Top of the Mark for our Magical Tea! Top of the Mark is a hotel at the very top of Nob Hill, such amazing views of San Francisco outside and inside...especially to a 3 year old!

Once we were seated, we hit the buffet (mac n cheese, pigs in blankets, grilled cheese) and the kids ordered pink lemonade!
They came around and told us the magic show was about to begin so we had to go find some seats! The magician was soooo good. Totally kid friendly, nothing scary and he did some really cool tricks.
We went back for some more lunch and dessert and then headed over to the face painting. Timo had seen a bat man mask on another little boy and just had to have it...even though he has no idea who bat man is. I just saw a whole lot of black paint on his face!
Cameron had princess on the brain from the sing-a-long so she asked for a princess. Hers took a while to do and I was impressed by how still she sat...except for talking. She was a little chatter box to the woman painting, telling her what she wanted for Christmas, how old she was, when her birthday was, on and on and on!
The second magic show started and Timo was especially happy he was picked as a volunteer to help with a trick...he got to examine a rope before it got tied in a knot. (look close, see the rope in his hands?)
Back at our table they brought around a present for each of the children...a magic kit...oh my! Luckily they didn't need our table so we could camp out and try out our new magic tricks!

As much fun as we were having, it was eventually time for us to go...we needed to go pick Daddy up from the airport. One last pink marshmallow and one last look from Top of the Mark!


Oh, one last pic from that day...here is Timo in the bath as we try to wash all that black paint off! (we won't talk about the temper tantrum Cameron had over not wanting to wash hers off.)