National Christmas Center

On Saturday, September 29, the Smithsonian Magazine was giving away free tickets to certain museums. Cousin Jess shared the info on Facebook, and we looked into which museums might be doable. The two we decided on were The National Christmas Center and the Toy Train Museum. Since Ryan wasn't feeling well that day, I called Mamaw after I finished Body Attack and asked her if she'd be willing to come and stay at our house with him while he napped. She said she'd come for an hour and then she was taking Jen's oldest girls out. So, we left right away with our two oldest boys and headed to Paradise, our first stop.

Shawn told me that this museum was going to be lame, and I told him that I had zero expectations for it. If it was anything beyond bogus, all it cost us was the paper to print the tickets and the gas to get there. For free, though, it ended up being pretty cool. I don't think I would have felt we got our money's worth if we had paid full price for admission, but we all left there feeling like it was a really fun experience this time. :) :) :)

The pictures above are the boys checking out a "five and dime" store with old merchandise that would have been available to buy as gifts. Some of the toys we still see around today while others reminded me of things that were at my grandparents house for us to play with when we were kiddos.

The next room was Santa Clauses (or similar characters) from around the world and how each country celebrates a different tradition. We read some of the signs to the boys while they enjoyed looking at the different Christmas trees and figures.

The museum was bigger than I expected and the tour kept going through different rooms. We loved watching the boys faces light up as they'd say "Wow!" or neat! Above was a doll house in one of the "gift" rooms. Doing this closer to Christmas would have been more fun to get ideas or even talk more about the season, but it was great to experience it for free since it's not something we would have done otherwise.

When Caleb walked into the room below with the reindeer that moved, he jumped with excitement! But, I didn't get a real great picture of it! He was SO cute!

Finally, I asked him to pose for a picture instead in front of the reindeer.

And Shawn took one of me and the boys next to the toy soldier. Joshua laughed at the white tree next to it.

Here's Caleb next to a snowman - at times he gets really into getting his picture taken. :)

Joshua's holding his elbow up because he bumped it again right before we left. He insisted that keeping it upright made it feel better.

There were polar bears, snowflakes, reindeer, toys, elves, Santas, Christmas trees and just about every decoration you can imagine. Some of the items were "antiques" of Christmas times gone by. One had a room that looked very 1950's with the white metal cabinets and old furniture, etc with a Christmas feast. It was neat to look at and get excited for the upcoming holiday season.

We walked down to another section that was a story. We didn't read all of it because we looked at our watch and knew our time was coming to an end.

When we got to the "train room," Joshua and Caleb laughed and laughed at this silly tree with a face on it. Caleb still talks about the Christmas tree with the face. He said he'd like one like this:

Here were some toys of days gone by... do you remember Raggedy Ann and Andy? We had those!

And in this same room, this conveyor belt brought up wrapped toys with elves near by. It was neat to watch.

This was one of my favorite trees all decorated with festive candy canes. :) :) :)

Here are some more of the pictures from the story boards that we didn't have time to read:

And here's the post office where Santa gets his mail:

More scenery shots:

Joshua's FAVORITE part by far was the "train room." It was very cool to see!

We watched as the trains raced around the track!

The entire scene was villages and towns covered in snow.

And in the center is a huge tree filled with ornaments. Imagine being a child and looking up at this site from their size. It was even impressive from someone my size!

They could have stayed there for hours, I think. But, we had to keep moving to get home to baby Ryan.

One last silly photo, please Mom, in front of the silly tree that's watching these trains?

Then we traveled on to Bethlehem. We saw nativity scene after nativity scene, but I loved how they had the Bible verses all over the walls about Jesus' birth. The tour ended with the true meaning of Christmas and the Savior Born, which I thought was great!

We walked through stone paths that were to feel like ancient times and saw what rooms might have looked like. Then we saw manger scenes from around the world, etc. It was great.

By this point, we were almost running to get through to the end. Our time was up, and we had to get back to Mamaw (thanks for watching the baby!). 

It was a fun museum to see! :) :) :)