This week I’ve been diving into my Budapest travel guides and trying to gather every last bit of information before we leave. Once we’re on the ground I don’t usually rely on our books, just the list I’ve made of things we should do and any facts that have stuck in my head during the research process. It leaves me free to enjoy the holiday without having to have my nose in a book. It also means I look at monuments and say things like “the Russians built this when they occupied Hungary after WW2. They were not nice people” or “this bridge is super old and is a big deal because it’s the first one that connected the two sides of the river. Look at it.” My commentary doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. Our trips are more for learning through experience than full of historical facts. As long as they get a taste of the culture and file away experiences in their memories that they can draw on later when they do learn about those events in history, then I’ll be happy.
So far Budapest looks like it will offer us Christmas markets, natural hot springs (spas scattered all over the city), underground caves, a zoo, some parks, a Roman ruin, the Danube and its bridges, a palace, an opera house and a Parliament building, some beautiful churches/synagogues, and more museums than we would ever want to visit.
But before we head out of the country, we’ve had several Christmas events before our Winter break begins.
The kindergarten and first grade classes had a big Polar Express party. She said, “My teacher said we can wear our pajamas, but I don’t want to.” I fished out that she didn’t want to ride the bus in her pajamas (sharing a brain helped me zero right in on the problem. Would I want to ride the bus in my pjs when all the big kids were wearing regular clothes? No thank you!) As soon as I offered to drive her to school she was happy to dress for the party.
All the students got a golden ticket for the train!
The base CO came over to the school to read to the kids. After the story, the kids had 2 hours of games and other activities at stations around the room. Military members came over to help run the activities: Christmas coloring pages, writing letters to Santa, making a Christmas train out of candy (a roll of lifesavers, some mints and some hershey’s kisses — super cute!), and many others.
facepainting — this sailor was an expert, drawing stars, Rudolph, Christmas trees, and other designs on all the happy kids. (Camille asked for Rudolph.)
She was a little hesitant about seeing Santa when he arrived, but marched right up, sat on his lap, and got her candy cane and bell. I had the pleasure of escorting her and 3 of her fellow kindergartners to the various stations. They were making me smile all morning. There is something special about being a kid and just enjoying that moment, without any grownup worries as distractions.
They loved the card making table. Glitter, stickers and markers. My girls could have stayed there all morning.
But there were sugar cookies to decorate
and hot chocolate with marshmallows to drink. Just like in the book! Camille and I are having a very fun kindergarten year.
The next big Christmas event was the base party where they had the tree lighting, Santa, crafts, candy, a snow machine, live entertainment, free food . . . over the top fun.
Unless you’re this kid and the last time you were at a party here it was Halloween and everything was scary. She threw a big crying, screaming fit in the afternoon, “I’m NOT GOING!!” But I told her we had to go because I wasn’t going to let her fears get in the way of her doing fun things. So we went and she hated it.
What caused the tears to start?
A guest appearance from the cast of Frozen! No joke, Olaf made her cry. She’s crazy. As Josh would say, “Just like her mother . . . “
Slow to warm up, at least she was smiling by the end of the evening. (But still had her nervous hands in her mouth.) She was happy to head to the car the moment I decided that she had endured long enough. Lord, I don’t even know what to do with her. She’s fearless one moment, and frozen the next. Once something gets in her head, forget trying to reason her out of it. She was invited to her friend’s birthday party and she tried to casually say, “Mom, I don’t need to go. I’ve been to a birthday party before.” Too bad for her that all those excuses used to be mine. I’m not going to let her world get smaller if I can help it. Ironically, she’s super excited about going on an airplane next week. I’ll sit next to her and hope some of her enthusiasm and fearlessness rubs off on me.
