Wassailing

This year, instead of going to our own town's Christmas event, 

we decided to go to my old school town's wassailing night. 

Yay Parchment! :)

What's wassailing, you ask? 

I had NO idea! 

I have heard that it's a holiday drink, 

a type of song and a gathering of people.. 

here's what it really is:

was·sail- noun

1. a salutation wishing health to a person, used in England in early times when presenting a cup of drink or when drinking to the person.

2. a festivity or revel with drinking of healths.

3. liquor for drinking and wishing health to others on festive occasions, esp. spiced ale, as on Christmas Eve and Twelfth-night.

...uh, okay?.. what we experienced that evening didn't seem like any of that, 

but we still had fun! 

Our first stop was at the middle school, to listen to my "niece" Mackenzie play in her first holiday band concert, it was so great to watch & hear her play!

We then took a trolley through town to see Santa.. which is the only thing that Aidan was interested in doing at that time.. 

it was FREEZING outside & most of the activities were outdoors. 

So, off to the bank to see Santa..

..doesn't he look thrilled? 

He wasn't too sure about the "old lady" (as Aidan called her) sitting next to Santa, he'd never heard of Mrs. Claus before & didn't care for her too much!

Kenzie got her picture taken with Santa too!

Our next stop was sponsored by the local church & was very interesting.. 

a live nativity!

Aidan was very captivated by this display, and the camel! 

His favorite holiday book has been this one,

and he was POSITIVE that this camel was the star of his favorite book! :)

Here he is checking out & talking to the camel..

 Okay, so I got very lazy about taking anymore pictures.. it was SO cold outside! 

We had a TON of hot chocolate, made some crafts, and ate an embarrassing amount of Christmas cookies before we came to our last stop.. 

a local car shop that had a live reindeer outside, a campfire & hot dog roasting! :)

It was fun to try something different this year :)