Since Australia doesn't celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, they tend to start preparing for Christmas early. Christmas trees are up in the stores by October, really. We've been holding off on the early festivities, but last weekend we finally caved in and went to the Christmas Festival at the St. Ives Shopping Village. It's the place featured in the stunning photo on the Wikipedia entry for "St. Ives, New South Wales". I have no idea why Wiki chose a photo of a mall to identify St. Ives, when there is a perfectly fine wildflower garden that they could have featured. Anyways, Mitch has been talking about Santa quite a bit lately so we figured we'd take him to see the jolly man in red, as well as partake in the festivities. Surprisingly, it was really well done and ended up being a nice way to spend the afternoon. First they had a cool little procession leading Santa in, consisting of three people in costumes on stilts banging cymbals and drums. They also had two wise men on camels. Where was the third wise Man? Who knows, we never saw him.
We visited Santa, and incredibly, the mall wasn't pimping him for paid photos. Kids just talked to Santa and Mrs. Claus for a few minutes, then Santa gave each kid a hat and a little pad to use for their Christmas list. As you can see from the photo below, I'm the annoying mom you usually see pushing their kid in to get closer. I didn't even realize I did that until I saw the photo. Mitch got just close enough for Santa to hear something about an electronic train set, but not close enough for a quality photo.
Afterwards we stopped by the face painting booth where Mitch was treated to a bat paint job.
It turned out more like a black butterfly, but he thought it was pretty cool. It was the first time we had face painting and I was dreading bath time. Fortunately, the clown painting his face was telling the truth when she reassured me that the paint washes off easily with soap and water.
Oddly, they also had a Punch and Judy puppet show. I've never seen the show, but I know it has been around forever. I was interested in seeing it, if only to try and uncover it's lasting popularity. The only thing I really knew about it was that one of the characters has a stick and beats other puppets with it. Anyone with a four year old boy knows that sticks are always a good time, especially if they make contact with something, preferably human. So, the puppet show seemed like a good option. But after about five excruciating minutes we left, it was just unwatchable. All I could gather is that Judy left a screaming baby puppet with Punch, who it turns out, is a totally inept and terribly annoying puppet. Since I left with more questions that I had started with, I did a little research on Wiki (Yes - I know Wiki is terribly unreliable, but it's good for general information). Turns out my perception wasn't totally off. Per Wiki, "The stereotypical view of Punch casts him as a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating psychopath who commits appalling acts of violence and cruelty upon all those around him and escapes with impunity; this is greatly enjoyed by small children." So there you have it. Not exactly what I imagine when I think of a kids puppet show.
Hopefully everyone is getting into the the Holiday spirit. We're coming around slowly, it's a little difficult imagining a hot humid Christmas when our last two were "white". By the way, here's a closing photo to remind everyone that Christmas is now only four weeks away!
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