Earlier this year, I stumbled on a quote that says, "Collect moments, not things," and it has stuck with me. As Sam and I have talked over the last month about what to get these spoiled girlies for Christmas, we kept coming back to two things--
(1) something related to Frozen
(2) an "experience" in lieu of stuff
We knew that Disney World had an Elsa-themed fireworks display at the Magic Kingdom castle, and we seriously considered taking a long weekend with the girls and going down for it. And then we decided that was crazy town. At least for now. There are lots of fun things to do last minute, Disney does not strike me as one of them. To make the most of it, it requires some advanced planning, so we shelved that for another day and time.
Then, we saw that Elsa and Olaf were going to be at The Greenbrier for meet and greets on certain weekends throughout December, so I thought about going and staying the night there and letting the girls meet their favorite characters. But, then I wondered what we would do the rest of our visit. Take Wills to high tea? Stroll by some fine china with the preschoolers? That sounded more like a form of parental stress torture rather than a fun Christmas experience for our family.
The girls often hijack our phones to pull up videos while we are out to eat or I'm cooking dinner. Time and time again, they are based on Frozen. Well, several times I've seen them watching videos from Frozen on Ice. On Monday night (after Elfie appeared and we decorated the tree), Harper took my phone and sat for an hour watching Frozen on Ice videos, and I got the idea to check and see if there happened to be one touring within a few hours of us. Sure enough, Disney's Frozen on Ice was scheduled for Greesnboro, NC (about an hour and forty minutes from our house) for this week! Tickets were ridiculous to even get in the building (like $70 for the cheapest seat in the building), so I checked on eBay. I found a set of 4 VIP social section tickets for cheaper than I could buy the 4 cheapest tickets on Ticket Master, so I pulled the trigger for a performance on Saturday, December 6 at the Greensboro Coliseum. We decided to keep it a secret from the girls and let "Elf on the Elf" surprise them on Saturday morning.
I let them unwrap their "something to wear" presents (since we've liked the idea of something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read for their Christmas gifts), and ta-da! Harper and Willa Kate, errr...Anna and Elsa!
I really, really, really wanted a picture of them together before we left, but Wills refused. She was in a bad mood from having to get up a little earlier than she would've liked (we had to leave our house by 8:30 to make our 11:00 showing), and that meant she didn't even want sissy to look at her, much less put her arm around her for a picture. Oh, Willa.
We made it to the Coliseum with about 20 minutes to spare (what. on. earth?!?! The Fertittas were early?!), and so we bought the girls some snow cones in Frozen souvenir cups, and set off to find our seats.
I knew they were going to be in one of the lower sections since we were 116 Row B, but when we were directed by the seating attendant to go all the way to the front, I about fell over. Row B was the SECOND ROW, and no one sat in front of us. It was awesome.
One of my most favorite things about motherhood is getting to create and experience magic and excitement for my daughters. Christmas is so much fun, Disney is so much fun, adventure is so much fun with these little sweethearts to do it with. As the characters came out and the excitement grew, I had tears in my eyes. How fun. How blessed we are to get to do this with and for our girls.
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| Here comes the snow! |
They were pretty much in shock for the entire performance. I don't think that Wills moved an inch for the entire hour and a half. She just ate her snow cone, her eyes not moving from the ice. The special effects in the production were amazing, and my favorite part is when it would start snowing. Literally snowing on us. Harper looked so cute with her arms stretched out trying to catch snowflakes.
I am so glad we stumbled across this early Christmas gift for Harper and Willa. It was worth every penny, for them and for us. Before we went back to Roanoke, we decided to eat somewhere close to the Coliseum, and we found a place called Harper's. It had some yummy food, and despite it being a little nicer than what we were anticipating (read: we wanted something barely above fast food since it was 1:30 a.k.a. nap time), but we all had some yummy food. Sam had a crab cake sandwich, I had chicken, and the girls had salmon with green beans, and they ate every bit.
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| Even Willa likes Harper's |
I hope this is a memory for the girls. I hope when they think back of one of the first Christmas memories they have, they think to this fun day, all four of us together. It may not be the conventional big "Santa present" under the tree, but I saw lots of smiles today that meant so much more.
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