A Christmas Story

Today we really got into the Christmas Spirit with a visit to the “A Christmas Story” house. It’s such a wonderful classic… and even more fun to check out in real life! The girls had a lot of fun ‘recognizing’ bits and pieces from the movie… and of course Allie ran around exclaiming “OH FUDGE!” numerous times, lol.

“you’ll shoot your eye out!”

(the classic view of the smokestacks from the backyard)

We headed over to Public Square and Tower City Mall in downtown Cleveland to check out the Christmas tree, maybe find Santa, and do a little window shopping. The kids talked us into an expensive stupid train ride around the mall – but it made for some fun childhood memories.

(This was the tree in Public Square, but it was a tid bit ghetto out in these parts – so we didn’t bother catching these lights at night…)

(these are the same window shops used in “A Christmas Story” and actually, it was fun to walk the block and see all the window displays)

We never found Santa – but we did find ‘Bruce the Spruce’ – a talking tree that was a lot like Siri but better! He asked the girls what they wanted for Christmas and promised to relay the message to Santa. But, in my awe for how much the tree interacted to individual conversations differently, I forgot to take a picture!

(Cleveland has always got guitars in random places)

To finish off the night we celebrated the end of a successful semester, great starts at school for Malia and Allie, best DAD award for Aaron and… the exciting news of Hoku receiving a Health Professions Scholarship from the Air Force. We are really excited for the opportunities ahead! So… we celebrated, thanks to the gracious gift from the Dr. I’ve been temping for, and blew it all on the many delicious courses offered at the Cheesecake Factory. (and in the restaurant complex – they had this beautiful tree)

We look forward to more celebrations of the Season!