Christmas comes early in Illinois

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Festival of Trees last weekend. It feels odd before Thanksgiving, but the festival ends this weekend and we're always out of town for the holiday. And so we enjoy a dose of tacky Christmas overload -- in the middle of November.

I usually try to have Kel dress nicely since this is where we get his annual photo with Santa, but this year we were going straight to basketball practise, so he was in gym pants and t-shirt. Oh well.





We love the giant gingerbread men. They are all frosted differently and you choose which one you want. Kel looks for maximum frosting. The frosting goes first, followed by the cookie.




Kel's reaction when I said, "Darn, you can't really tell that its a Beatles tree" as he posed by a tree with a Beatles theme. It would have been all matchy matchy cute, but you'll just have to trust me. It was a Beatles tree.




Kel and Santa. Not too old yet. He insisted on waiting to see the Big Guy, even though the line was ridiculous.





Kel took this photo of me and Nic next to some weird stuffed animal tree.