A letter of thanks

Dear secret Santa sweet generous angel of blessing,

I do not know who you are, or even if you read my blog, but I had to write a thank you to you and since I can do it here and include pictures, that'sa what I'ma gonna do.

Ever since we received our bag of goodies at the church my kids have been counting down the days till our train ride. I think they figured it would never come. But it did. And it was magical!

Dressed in pajamas, we drove to the train station and listened to the Polar Express book on CD to get us ready. Once there, we waited impatiently excitedly for it to start. And it was amazing! They played the movie up on the screen and when they let us out to the tracks they played the part from the movie when the kid fell asleep. It was so fun! Can you see their excitement?




I could not have imagined their reaction to the whole thing. It was priceless and I can only hope we captured it a little bit with pictures. Jack had just woken up from a nap when we left our house and he wasn't in a great mood {I was a bit worried about that} but just look at his face as the train pulled up! I got goose bumps. It was a sight!

We had the perfect spot for the scene to be played out as the boy talks to the conductor and gets on the train. It was right in front of us! The whole thing was exactly like the book and it made you feel apart of it.
The kids got their golden tickets and held onto them all night.

Just like in the book they received hot chocolate as thick as a melted chocolate bar and a sweet treat {Christmas marshmallow rice krispie treats}. Jack was in sugar heaven! He kept calling it his coffee.
The conductor came around and punched holes in our tickets and asked if we wanted sprinkles and proceeded to hole punch over our heads :)
We used the lights {that you gave us in our bag} as swords, microphones and guns.
They played the book on CD for us (again) as we sipped our "coffee", ate our goodies and looked at the town and we rode along to the North Pole.

We reached the North Pole and were blown away by the incredible display of happiness {aka Christmas lights}!
The kids hung out the window looking for Santa. They got to see the boy receive the first gift of Christmas - the bell.
We took pictures of the happy parents and children
Kale thought we weren't going to see Santa so he was disappointed for this picture. Little did he know that Santa was going to visit each car on the way back!
Here he found out that news but by then Jack was done taking pictures...
Kate got to kiss Santa on the cheek...
...Jack gave him a high five...
...and Kale squeezed the kind man's neck to pieces...
...seriously it was so sweet. They each got their first gift of Christmas - their bells {which by the way we heard ringing for the rest of the night - I'm not worried about us not being able to hear them in the future}
Jack entertained us, and the car, with his mad dancing skills [thanks to big amounts of sugar and no place to run]. We sang Christmas carols the whole way home, saw a boy get his present from Santa {another part of the play}, and drew on the steamy windows.

There is no way we can thank you enough for this priceless memory that you gave us. We were so blessed by your thoughtfulness. It was always something we wanted to do and now we have and we have wonderful memories and pictures to remind us of this magical night.

Thank you.

PS. If you are reading this and you know who blessed us, please pass this link onto them. I'd really like them to know what a wonderful time we had. Merry Christmas!