Ho Ho Ho and A Bottle of Rum (Ok Wine)

Yesterday was a Christmas extravaganza day for us. I'm not a fan of leaving the North Shore on the weekends after all the driving I do during the week, but poor Eve would never get to do anything if I didn't occasionally trek to town. Friday night, I went out to Ka'a'awa for a super fun Pomegranate Martini Christmas party with a bunch of hilarious women. That was a great kick off to my 4 day weekend! We played Naughty Santa and I left with 2 bottles of wine...score!

Yesterday I took Eve to The Nutcracker, which was followed by a Sugarplum Fairy tea. When we lived in NC, I would take her every year to the Sugarplum Fairy tea at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. It's amazing...the venue is awesome...the food is great...there are photo opps with the fairy. This was far less grand, but Eve enjoyed it. We sat on a cement bench eating a quarter of a PB&J and drinking fruit punch, but she got to see the Sugarplum Fairy up close and that seemed to make her happy enough. NC has the tea thing in the bag though, Hawaii could take notes...I'm just saying.

After the performance, CRH met us and we went to Ala Moana for our annual Santa visit. I LOVE Santa, but I hate this mall and I hate trekking into Waikiki yet every year I make us go b/c this Santa is THE best. Sure enough traffic was horrible on the H1 (even at 5pm on a Saturday) but once we got there it was all worth it. We got smarter this year and after entering the mall at Macy's where Eve could write her letter (I love that!)...we decided to skip the food court for CPK and enjoy a bottle of wine with dinner. CRH spotted sunset on the way to the restaurant, so we got to watch a beautiful sunset and then head to dinner. I could feel my blood pressure dropping as I polished off the last sips. Eve was so cute patiently waiting...poor kid.

I had a plan for the mall...you should never go into that mall without a clear cut agenda because it's vast. After executing it down to the level Santa was on, we hopped in line. It wasn't bad...really. There was entertainment from the other parents and kids in line and we moved pretty quickly along (Yes, 2 weeks before Christmas on a Saturday night no less!). I think this may be the last year for Santa though, so it was a little bittersweet for me. She's asking a ton of questions and when I avoided her yesterday she totally called me on it. I hate for that innocence and magic to leave, so I'm keeping it going as long as I can, but I was 8 years old when I figured it out and I'm worried she's smarter than I am.

When we left the mall, we went to the City of Lights display. We went for the first time last year and it's so cool. I've added a couple of pictures below. Eve questioned again how Santa could be at the mall and at the City of Lights. We gave the patented 'Santa can't be in every place all at once...' after the 'He's a magical elf.' fell flat. I'm worried she's onto us.