Day Seven: Festival of Lights

Day 7 of the 12 Days of the Reeders' Christmas...

We spent an evening with friends at the Cincinnati Zoo's Festival of Lights this week. The kids' eyes were wide as they took in all the twinkling light displays. Joe loved the tunnel of lights that leads into the zoo as well as the flashing tree by the entrance. Brooke's favorite spot was the fairy land by the elephant house that was filled with pink & purple lights. I'm pretty sure Jack's favorite part was the nap he took midway through :)

They have lots of fun Christmas activities for the kids. There were 4 reindeer for the kids to see; Brooke & Joe spent several minutes trying to guess which of Santa's reindeer they were (they both agreed one of them had to be Prancer.) Brooke got to write a letter to Santa and put it in the zoo's mailbox. A zoo employee told her that the letter would be taken to Santa that night - he said the reindeer fly back to the North Pole each night to get ready for Christmas. They also got to take pictures with Frosty & a gingerbread girl (Joe was very nervous and wouldn't get too close, though.) I think my favorite part was meeting Mrs. Claus. She's the best! There weren't any other children around so she spent a solid 5 minutes with the kids, telling them all of Santa's favorite things and about the North Pole. It was super cute!

It was freeeeezing cold with a fierce wind that did not help things. Although I prepared the kids for the cold (2 pair of pants each, sweatshirts under winter coats, hats/gloves/scarves/etc.), we found ourselves ducking inside every chance we got. This actually worked to our advantage, though, because our kids are usually too afraid to go in the "houses" at the zoo (think insect house, nocturnal house, cat house, etc.) Since there weren't any animals outside, this was the only way we got to see anything. Between the lack of animals and the bitter cold, our stay was brief. Despite this, we had a great time and the kids did, too.