Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Christmas for the Hearty Northerners

On Sunday after church, I changed all of the kids into warm clothes and drove over to Holz Farm for their Old Fashioned Christmas Celebration. Have I mentioned how much I love this little gem of a place not 5 minutes from my front door? All of the days events were FREE - my favorite thing of all! It snowed the entire time we were there - at one point turning into a hard hail-like snow, making the grounds just beautiful.

The first thing we saw as we walked up to the farm was a reindeer! The kids were so impressed to see a live reindeer who seemed completely indifferent to the cold and snow.


Inside the barn - Santa! Both Sophie and Max took turns sitting with Santa in the old fashioned sleigh, but Calvin was far too scared and hid behind and hid behind a pillar peeking out at Santa when he was not looking.



I'd like to point out that Calvin dresses himself these days. He insisted on the uber-cool sunglasses. Snow-glare, you know.


We took a sleigh ride - without the sleigh. It was actually pulled by an old tractor. We sat on bales of hay and rang our bells while enjoying the view of the farm.


After the winter hay ride (only in Minnesota), we made smores at the bonfire. Yes, smores in 10 degree weather. The marshmallows tended to freeze as soon as you pulled them off the stick but the kids did not seem to care!


Here is the nice gentleman who tried to help Calvin warm his hands over the fire. By this point he was freezing, but he wanted to eat his smore and the gloves were making that tricky!


Inside the farmhouse, the kids warmed up with hot apple cider and sugar cookies. We sat and listened to Christmas carols being played on an old fashioned organ while Max and Sophie read Christmas stories and Calvin made an ornament out of pine cones and bells.


Fun, fun, free, fun!

6 comments:

  1. That sounds like SOOO much fun! BTW, where was Bryan during all of this?

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  2. Calvin looks like one hot stud in those sunglasses!

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  3. What a cutie! I just want to eat him up!!!!

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  4. how fun!!! and you're right, it doesn't get any better than free, free, free (oh, and fun). anyhoo, i did feel for calvin in that one pic of his cold face. how hard to choose between gloves and sugar. i would go for sugar too.

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  5. oh, and i wanted to add that i'm glad you survived that "tuesday" you mentioned earlier in your blog. so glad you were able to have an evening filled with holiday cheer. it's so easy to just get so busy during the holidays. i need to channel more christmas cheer.

    love how all your kids have their own christmas trees. what a fun mom. and yes, i would like a mudroom too. or at least eventually to enclose my breezeway so it's a usable space in the winter.

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  6. I'm sad we missed it. And i love Calvin's outfit.

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