You must see it, to believe it.

Sorry for the delay. Get caught up in other things.  My WIP progress count is at 10,700 and I'm still going, although it's more difficult on weekends when everyone is attacking me. Onto the rest of the saga known as the NorthPoleBC.

It was dark when we walked down the path to Mrs.Claus' house.  A string of laundry waved in the breeze, the pants from an obviously robust man.  Once you walk in, Mrs.Claus sits at the front of the room, welcoming you in. Suddenly, the cabin feels tiny, almost clausterphobic. You are about to find out why.

Mrs.Claus begins with asking how we are all doing, then showing us around her house.  She carries a red broom that looks like it's seen better days, and shows us her cherry pie that she just baked (it was glass) and on the wall a photo of her 'beloved.'  It actually sounded a bit dirty the way she said it, but I wouldn't find out how dirty until later when Santa referenced her 'baking him a delicious cherry pie' and both kids couldn't understand why because they knew it was glass. Really, you had to be there.

First impressions? Mrs.Claus' egg nog was spiked and she was a master 'thespian' of epic proportions.  We think she spent some time learning her craft while living with the Claus' for awhile at the North Pole (aka: The Betty Ford Clinic).

After reading a story that had not much to do with Christmas, I thought we were on our way out of there. But no. Alas, it was time to pull out the flute for a bit of a sing along. Now anyone who knows me understands that I am not a singer, I do not like to even sing along to Happy Birthday, and I will certainly never start a round of it. I can be found humming Christmas carols or mouthing the words to Happy Birthday. Does this make me a bad mother? Really, I'm seriously asking. Someone tell me.

At any rate, we sat through a lively rendition of "If you are happy and you know it." Not feeling very festive, I began to video tape on my cell phone for posterity and then tweeted the experience. FYI: Excellent cell phone reception at the NorthPole.  The experience was only made better when my son expressed his 'happiness' but 'spinning around' one too many times and ended up bailing into the bags of flour. Video can be seen here: Nate bails in Mrs.Claus' house.

After another story & a rendition of "Let it Shine" we were finally on our way (allowed to escape). We made our way back to the main hall, where we had a nice snack and sat by the fire. Very cozy.

Our visit to Santa was announced by an Elf helper who took us down the windy path to Santa's house. This was the best part of the whole trip. Really, really beautiful on the path there, and Santa was quite the guy.  He made a point of speaking to each of the kids (even the one who had his head buried in his dad's leg), and tried to talk to them a bit about what they liked & didn't like. He then sort of lectured them about being nice to each other and not fighting. I think Santa is psychic. He must have seen the bloodshed in the van on the way up to the Pole.

After our visit, he handed each kid a pack of cookies and said "Santa has to inform you that these cookies were made by Elves in a factory that has peanuts." Go Santa! I thanked him, because I have many friends with kids who have peanut allergies. Also, this is a good time to plug the peanut awareness bracelets that Protect Your Peanut is selling.  But I digress.

Cookies in hand, kids were thrilled to be able to look around for a bit, and we were treated to a quick, musical light display set up by the Elves. It was very nice.

My overall opinion? The NorthPoleBC is a great place to take the family. I really liked it. It was a bit on the expensive side, but you do get the 'experience' of it all. It needs some tweaking, because it's more difficult to fool kids who have been to Disney as many times as mine have (more than 5 times and the oldest is 8). It would be much better if there had been snow, as there seems to be right now, so go and make your reservation if you can.