december 11th

** Warning - LOTS of Photos! **

The kids and I went on an adventure yesterday evening...

We went out to take a ride on the CTA's Holiday Train...
The kids were so excited to see the decorated train pull in to the station! And then add to that...
... there was Santa riding in his sleigh on a flatbed train car!!! (sorry about the angle on this one... wasn't expecting Santa to be riding backwards so I swung around got whatever shot I could)

The train was really full when we got on. It's pretty funny... it seemed to be mostly filled with people who were just trying to get home from work! I think the most fun I had was seeing the shocked faces of all of the unsuspecting people on the platforms. They had no clue that their ride home would be on the Santa Train! (the holiday train makes all of the usual stops along the route, like any other train, and it requires no special ticket or fare)

We rode it to the end of the line which gave us an opportunity to walk around and take photos...
Here are some of Santa's reindeer...

Again, Santa caught me by surprise...
We were just trying to walk past Santa when he grabbed the kids and posed for a photo.

We had about 4 minutes between when a train pulled out and another pulled in to get a full length shot of the train from the other platform...
Then it was time to board again and head back home.

Here's an interior shot...
(the woman in the background is a CTA worker - dressed as an elf - who works at the L station by Alex's guitar lessons, she asks him every Sunday to play something for her)

Not only is everything decorated, but the usual advertisements have been replaced with fun, Christmas related ones...
and between them, there are corny jokes that the kids LOVED...

Oh... I totally wasn't expecting the upholstery on the seats to be Christmasy too!
... the bucket is full of candy canes that the "elves" passed out to everyone on the train. There was also Christmas music playing the whole time!

We had a really great time and made it home just in time to get dinner in the oven!

I love Christmas time in the city! :-)