Silver Dollar City Christmas

I was thankful that after a Covid hiatus last year, we were able to resume our annual tradition of visiting the Silver Dollar City Christmas festival during the first weekend of December. (We did still get to visit last year, but it happened after Christmas with Kyle & Sara's family, which was fun, too!).  I was a little sad, though, that our whole family wasn't able to be there.  Violet has made it clear on more than one occasion that SDC is NOT her cup of tea, so she stayed with Grandma Jo.  But Calvin loves going, and unfortunately had basketball practice, so had to stay home.  I knew the day would come as the kids get older that they'll have other commitments, but I still really missed my Calvin! We've had a good run for 12 years straight with the family!  We left on our little vacation as Calvin and Violet were leaving for school (cruel, I know), and arrived just before the park opened.

Notice Oliver's shorts and t-shirt?  He was the smart one of the day, as the rest of us were hot in our pants!  Would you believe it was 75 degrees on this December 3?  We took sweatshirts and never needed them, even after dark.  The low was in the mid-60s.  Talk about a perfect day! Before the "rope drop" (i.e. when the rides open), we walked around and took in some of the beautiful decorations around the park.

We were at the front of the line to get to Time Traveler first thing.  But the big question was, would Evie ride it this year??

She did, and she even liked it!  And what's more, she was ready to ride some of the other big roller coasters.  We headed to Powder Keg next, one of my favorites that seems to never actually be open.

Another winner!  And next up, we rode Wild Fire TWICE!  Perhaps she has Grandma Cheryl's "roller coaster gene" after all :)

We got so lucky with our day.  Not only was the weather absolutely perfect, there were no lines for any of the rides!  We seriously waited no more than 15 minutes to ride anything.  It was amazing.  After riding all of the big rides at least once, we decided to take a little break to do some Christmas ornament shopping.

These two picked out their 2021 ornaments and also made some awesome selections for their brother and sister.  Then we re-fueled with some snacks.

We rarely get to one of the big shows during the Christmas festival (because we don't want to spend all of our day waiting in line), but there was a new one this year and we were able to walk right in before show time.  "Home for Christmas" was really fun, with several musical numbers, beautiful singing and dancing, and gorgeous costumes.

It was the first year we've missed Tinker, Jr (yes, the kids are officially too old for the 'kiddie' shows), but we'll never miss "The Living Nativity" if I have anything to say about it.  Hearing the true story of Christmas -- how Jesus humbled himself and came to Earth as a helpless baby to save us all from our sins -- never gets old.

By the time the shows were over, it was getting dark and the park was lighting up!  We decided we wouldn't worry about seeing the parade this year, and instead would just walk all around the park to enjoy the beauty.

We decided to see if the lines were still short for Wild Fire, thinking it would be pretty cool to see the park from way up high at night.  Our luck kept going -- we got right on with no wait!

And speaking of luck, as we got off the ride, we were walking to see more lights and literally found ourselves at the beginning of the parade route!  So we got to watch the fun parade after all, and from a different vantage point than we typically have with the huge tree in Midtown as a backdrop. SOOO pretty.

We took our time walking through Midtown, taking in all of the lights and sights.

What a fantastic day we had with these 2!

To finish our day, we watched the amazing tree on Town Square as it also told the story of Christ's birth through it's pictures and songs.  I just love this place, especially at Christmas.

It was one of the best days we've ever had at the Christmas Festival (Calvin, if you're reading this, it was really pretty boring and we could barely enjoy ourselves at all without you there.)  I'm so thankful for all of the blessings we were given throughout the day! (Again, Calvin, boring boring boring.  Snooze-city.) 

We headed out of the park and found our hotel for the night, The Grand Plaza.  We stayed here a couple years ago and really enjoyed it!

We ordered some pizza and ended up just relaxing in the room for the night.  Kids didn't even have the energy to go swimming, which was just fine after a very full day.  The next morning, we got some breakfast and got ready for our drive back home.  Evelyn was trying to fit in with other hotel guests by wearing her pajama pants around the hotel.

I loved this decoration at the Grand Plaza.  Such a gift that God gave us on that first Christmas, his one and only Son, that we who believe may not perish but spend eternity with him.  We have SO much to be thankful for during this season and every single day.