Awfully Chipper: Christmas in July

Last Saturday we went to the National Harbor to see the Gaylord Christmas in July preview event, because now that I'm a DCMom I get to do all sorts of cool stuff. (Really, I just wanted another place to write. I wasn't thinking about events or freebies at all. But apparently sometimes those happen too.)

I hope you don't think I'm selling out if I talk about this stuff here too. I'll keep the proper reviews to the DCMoms site where they belong, but sometimes the experiences might be just too interesting to keep to myself.

Because I have to say it was a weird sensation - being marketed to, being handed a media packet even as my daughter insisted on being carried and my son demanded something or other, and knowing that these people actually wanted me to bring the children, so they couldn't complain if they were a little loud. It was odd to be anywhere in a sort of quasi-professional capacity, especially when that capacity was mostly being my non-professional parent self.

Some thoughts that occurred to my non-professional parent self, then:

If you're going to hand out sticky green candy canes to keep the kids occupied during the presentation part of the goings-on, please provide some wipes as well. Otherwise, there may be tacky handprints all over your nice upholstered chairs that even the most assiduous parent can't avoid.

I never turn down free food, but why put the candy and ice-cream first and the hot-dogs two hours later? Where is the logic in that? But thank you for including the fresh fruit. It was a nice idea, even if my kids scorned it.

Green-flavour cotton candy (that's lime, not mint).

But ooh, pretty, unseasonal, Christmas.

Soap-bubble snow

Santa? Seriously? Oh well. Apparently, children aren't at all bothered by the fact that he's not supposed to be around in July. Mabel told him she wants a princess, and he said he'd get right on that.

They got Shrek ears. (I was wearing Mabel's.)

Also, those pictures of giant ice-sculptured Shrek characters you keep showing us look unpleasantly as if they were made from enormous gobs of glistening snot. I am not attracted to them. Ogres look better when matte, not slimy.

Hugging Puss 'n' Boots. I hope I didn't miss Antonio Banderas in there.

We actually went to the National Harbor for the lighting of the tree last year - hey, I blogged it, even - and happened to walk through the atrium of the Gaylord where all their very impressive Christmas stuff was out in full force - gigantic tree, acres of lights, gingerbread houses to decorate, Dreamworks Characters being posed with. It looked great, though we scuttled past it all pretty quickly, denying the children things left and right. It was a lot of fun on Saturday to experience some of the same things for free, even if it was in a much smaller room and at the wrong time of year.

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After the indoor part, there was an outdoor part to showcase all the fun times one can have at the national harbor this summer. Sadly, the weather decided to make it Christmas - or maybe a dismal November - outside too, just for this one day, so I think it was far from what the planners had envisaged. They had a canopy that I'm sure was supposed to shade us from the blazing sunshine, but instead it could do only a half-assed job of keeping us dry. Every now and then I'd look out and think it was really coming down, and then the rain would kick it up another notch. Luckily, we'd brought the raincoats.

Grey skies, grey water

The kids got balloon animals and a really excellent face painter, as well as a stilt walker and a lady-clown-plate-spinner, so they were happy. The boat rides would have been lovely on any other day, but as it was, we all just kept to wet land.