Another Busy Holiday Weekend

The holiday season got a good kick-off this weekend! We had Joe's big Hospice party on Friday night (I'd missed the smaller party earlier in the week because Xander was sick.) and our friend Kathy was kind enough to watch Xander for us.

Joe of course was a social butterfly, going from table to table to visit. I mostly hung out with two of his supervisors. There was also a group participation murder mystery that was pretty funny, and Joe won the 50/50 raffle! He even danced with me. Awww!


Saturday we set out for the Yankee Candle Factory Flagship store in South Deerfield, MA. We'd made the trip last year and had such a good time that we all wanted to go back. It was a 3 hour drive, but so worth it. There were plenty of photo ops available, and Joe let me take advantage of most of them (Xander wasn't so generous).

Joe and Xander made wax hand molds again, and this year also made their own jar candles. Xander loves doing that kind of hands-on stuff! We also had a nice lunch at The Chandler, the restaurant that is part of the facility there.

Of course we looked at all of the toys. Xander played with some puppets, and got to make a monkey at Yankee Candle's version of Build a Bear (I think they call it Paws & Claws). While we were waiting for Joe to finish checking out, Xander took it upon himself to reorganize the smurf display because it was too disorderly. LOL!

The highlight, and main reason we made this trip, was seeing Santa. They had a very nice set-up there, lots of trees and other bits that added to the festive atmosphere. And since the line became quite long, they had two big screen TVs mounted up on the wall that were showing Christmas movies like Rudolph and Frosty.

Santa spent a good long while chatting with Xander, and looking over the wish lists we'd all made. Xander and I got chastised for not using the word please in our letters, at which point Xander pulled out his wallet and offered Santa his $2. That's my boy, LOL! He really was a nice Santa, the best next to Santa Bill (our local Santa who no longer does regular appearances).
The ride home was long and anxious, since the weather had changed to lots of wet, snotty snow. But we finally made it and we were all exhausted after the full day we had. Next year we'll leave earlier!