Here comes Santa Claus....

Since we've done the same thing for two years in a row, we've decided to make it a new tradition!  The day after Thanksgiving, Naperville has their annual Santa Claus/turning on the lights parade and celebration. It's pretty fun and quite a big deal around town.  There are some really neat shops in downtown Naperville and the atmosphere is awesome! The library gives out hot cocoa and we sit and watch the parade and then afterwards Santa flips the switch to light up Main Street with all the Christmas lights!  Afterwards we find a fun little restaurant to try and have dinner while we try to thaw out! 

 Bundled up!

This train was on Oprah's Favorite Things show loaded with gifts for the audience!  

It's officially Christmas... Santa's here!!!

The second part of our new tradition is to go to downtown Chicago the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  We did this last year and couldn't wait to go back.  We've been there several times but it's so much different at Christmas time.  I can't think of a better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to go to the Magnificent Mile and see all the fancy department stores all decorated, the window displays, people all bundled up and the hustle and bustle of seeing all those people shopping!  It's beautiful, amazing and so much fun!  

Being as my birthday always falls on or around Thanksgiving weekend we incorporate celebrating it along with our other holiday activities. One thing I wanted to do was to go to Sprinkles and get a cupcake!  If you haven't heard of it, it's a very trendy cupcake store that is known for famous celebrities using them for their parties and gifts for friends and family. They've been featured many times on different TV shows and it happens to be one of Oprah's favorite things!  Martha Stewart even promotes them so you know it must be pretty neat!  (hear the sarcasm) The original one is in L.A. and there's only several stores around the U.S., this one in Chicago is one of the most recent ones to open.  

    

 Notice the line to get in...

 They are $3.25 each and they are the size of a regular cupcake.  

Do you know how many cup cakes I could make for the price we paid for 4 cupcakes????

It's crazy (but ohhhhhh, soooooo good)!!!!

 Rodger had red velvet, I had coconut, 

Kaylon had peanut butter chocolate, and Danielle had chocolate marshmallow!  

YUMMY!!!

 Here's a few other highlights of the day....

 Woody!  (made from Legos)