Fancy Schmancy

While my parents were here last week we went to a fancy schmancy gigancy hotel for our Christmas light viewing pleasure.  From the outside of the building I guessed we were going to walk into a lobby that had big, ornate tiles on the floor that shone a little too hard and a few pieces of overstuffed furniture that would intimidate and confuse Everyman's bottom.  I figured it was probably a nice enough hotel that there would be a few eye toppling Christmas trees with hypertrophied red and green balls wrapped in ribbon shellacked into cork-screw perfection, but most likely nothing worth the drive we had just made to see it.  I was afraid I had chosen to bring us to some serious Christmas blah.

But Christmas blah it was not.  We walked straight into Christmas in the Amazon - well more like Christmas in a high-ceilinged airport that the Amazon had grown up through - well maybe Christmas in a high ceilinged airport that a Poinsettia infested Amazon had grown up through - well maybe Christmas in a high ceilinged airport that a Poinsettia infested Amazon peopled with hordes in red velvet carrying fashionable purses had grown up through.  I think the rooms at this hotel were more than $69 a night.

There were waterfalls and grottoes and cute wishing wells like the one above.  There were skyways and pathways and bridges and blossoms.  And everywhere there were streams of lights hanging down, and oversized ornaments spinning, and animals in Santa suits parachuting downward.  My favorite part were the four or five foot tall animals made of pine boughs and covered in white lights hidden in the foliage.  There were elephants and lions and bears and giraffes.  It was almost like being Dorthy coming into all those crazy color-changing horses behind the walls of Oz.

I think a child's favorite part of Christmas isn't the actual gift they have in their hands once the tearing and ripping and opening are done.  I think what a child loves about Christmas is the surprise.  Thanks for that piece of Christmas for this crusty old 30-somethinger fancy schmancy gigancy hotel!