Christmas Cheer

My nod to Christmas.
We don't have any family here and aren't traveling so there's not much holiday cheer here. We do have a tree and are having Christmas dinner with some friends here, who were shocked to find out we were not going to be with family for the holiday.

We did go to the 37th street lights yesterday. It was a cold night and we were happy to discover that Lorelei now fits properly in the Ergo baby carrier. She does not, however, fit in her little snow suit. It makes her took much taller than she is, which is kinda adorable.
Seriously....look how long her legs look and then look how tiny her head is.


A little background.... unlike the Trail of Lights, the 37th street lights are simply lights on one block of a residential area in central Austin. It started with neighbors trying to one up each other and turned into an annual attraction. Fast forward 20+ years and of course some neighbors have moved and some houses are empty etc. Supposedly they "aren't as good" as they used to be because it's more just lights, less crazy artistic nonsense, but they are fun and free to see. Also, unlike the Trail of Lights, it doesn't require a shuttle bus to get to, which is a big selling point on a below freezing winter night when hauling a baby around.

A lot of people just drove there and there was a huge line for people waiting to drive down the block, but half the fun is the walking IMO so that's what we did.


We found parking only a block away and ambled down the block and then around the neighborhood before we got too cold and decided to go home to warm up.

A few highlights:

Gnomes being repressed


Flying Spaghetti Monster, or "Hi, How are you?"
Our group's consensus was FSM... The other one would not have come to mind except someone right behind us insisted it was the latter. After comparing both of them to the picture above I can see why someone might think it was the "Hi, How are you" but only if they had never seen the FSM.

I'm not quite sure what the message was supposed to be here.


My favorite, the Sock Monkey Nativity


And a family shot right before heading back to the car
I hope everyone has a great Christmas, and enjoys the days getting longer from here on out.