First of all, for all of my virtual friends and blog followers out there, here is me sending out my card to you. We went with Shutterfly this year because they had the lowest price and I had a coupon through a Kohl’s purchase. Happy Holidays from my home to yours!

Last night we revisited a tradition that we had stopped. When Leo and I were dating we used to drive through some big neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights. It was my favorite tradition because we’d talk about when we would get married and have kids and how we had hoped to live in a house as big as the ones we saw (obviously infertility and CF were not a part of the discussion).

Anyway, when the kids were little we would put them to bed and a half hour later, we’d wake them up (since my kids have always been crappy sleepers, get them up is a better way to put that) and bundle them up and take them to see the lights. It was something they looked forward to until Nico was in third grade and the twins were in preschool. The year after, we lost Rocco so we didn’t do that. We went and looked at the lights in Carol Stream. They have a neighborhood with all the Disney characters. The fighting wasn’t as much because the time in the car was short. We did that every year since but this year, I wanted to revisit our old tradition.

There was fighting. There were threats that we weren’t going to go. I tried to bribe Nico into going with us (it was his first night back to hanging out with his friends…if I am going to trust him, I need to see that he can actually make good choices and thankfully, last night was a quiet one) but seeing the lights with your family when you want to be hanging with your friends means making the whole car of people miserable. It made me sad knowing that. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that Leo let us drag him away from the football games he was watching to do this. He’s a good man.

If you look closely, you’ll see Tommy aggravating Gia in this picture.

I love this picture but it is hard not be sad whenever I look at it because someone is missing.

We set out and hit our first stop for hot chocolates:

Our first stop was the Carol Stream neighborhood. Gia’s eyes were like saucers looking at all of the characters. Her squeals of delight were worth the endless questions of “Is this some sort of contest? Do they try to beat the other houses?” (Tommy) ”Are these the only lights? Why don’t all the houses do them?” (Belle) “Are we going to another neighborhood? What does store them mean? Are we going for a long car ride? We aren’t done, are we?” (Both) From there we went to Candy Cane Lane. Or at least we tried. We went to where it used to be and either we totally missed it or it is not there anymore. We saw a few nice houses but nothing extraordinary. I will say nothing says “Christmas Spirit” like peeing on the side of your car while looking at the lights. I swear…I thought because Nico wasn’t with us, we could avoid that but I was wrong.

When that was a minor bust, we headed to Founder’s Pointe in Bloomingdale. That was a huge neighborhood that we’d drive through when Leo and I were dating. Either the economy has taken a toll on everyone and it is showing in people not wanting to jack up their electricity bills with Christmas lights or people have lost the drive to decorate because that was a bust as well. We headed to Indian Lakes (which brought back a ton of memories because my bus used to drive through there every morning) and that neighborhood, even after all this time, is still beautiful. There were a lot of houses that were decorated nicely. We were losing the kids in fits of silliness and arguments but on a whim, I talked Leo into turning into one more neighborhood. The Mallard Lake neighborhood off of Schick Road in Bloomingdale and I can’t tell you how happy I am that we did. IT.WAS.AWESOME!!!! There were houses decorated to the hilt and then…we came across a house that had this great big light show. The lights danced and changed and the kids sat in awe. We looked and Santa was in the window conducting the lights and then we tuned to the radio station they told us to and the lights followed the music. We sat there for  20 minutes with the kids giddy and excited while the show went on. It was exactly what I had imagined back when Leo and I were dating.

We left that house only to see another house in the neighborhood doing another light show. We sat for another 15 minutes. If you live near here, I highly suggest going to see it. One of them is on Black Duck Road.

I took video but am having trouble uploading it (of course I am) but here is a picture to give you an idea:

This picture doesn’t at all do it justice.

On another note, I finally found someone to help me with the gift card. He was a young guy (and by young I mean in his 20′s because I am old) that after I explained what I wanted to do, he replied, “That’s totally awesome!” He got really into it and excited that he got to choose who to give it to so I am pretty confident that he didn’t take it for himself and if he did, I am okay with that. He was a nice guy. I was actually sweating with nerves before I asked him to do it. Why is that? Why was I so nervous? I was right, though. It did feel amazing. I didn’t stick around to see who he gave it to. I was afraid of the reality. I like the version in my head much better.

All the way around, it was a good day. A tradition came alive again and a tradition was born.

What about you? Share one of your traditions in the comments.

*I did not receive compensation for mentioning Shutterfly. I just really like them.

**Edited to add that this wasn’t the original plans for the night. We were supposed to get together with my parents and my sisters and their families to make Christmas cookies but with all of our kids getting over being sick we were afraid to get together before Christmas. It is proof that some of the best memories are made by accident.

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