I feel like the winter solstice is much more celebration-worthy than the calendar New Year yet I’ve never been to a solstice celebration. The evening of the solstice we headed into Palmer again, this time for a tour of the Alaska Christmas Factory held at the State Fairgrounds. The full moon shone down on us and I couldn’t help but think of the Big Anniversary (3 years since Mike died on the 18th) and his birthday on the 28th. What better way to honor his memory than spend the holidays together with the kids.

Iris has reached the age where she’s really in to Christmas and birthdays and celebrations in general. I have mixed feelings about her belief in Santa. In one regard, it’s fun to play along and I get caught up in the excitement with her. On the the other hand, I keep thinking, How is this going to end? I’ve been dropping hints, such as telling her that mommies and daddies are sometimes Santa’s helpers. Her response: NO! Santa’s helpers are elves who live in grottos! You are not an elf and you don’t live in a grotto! To top it off, when she got a chance to talk to Santa and Mrs. Claus on this Christmas tour, the first thing she told them was that her silly mom tried to tell her that she was one of Santa’s helpers. How ridiculous.

This tour was described as an interactive theatrical journey through Santa’s workshop. We didn’t know quite what to expect. What we got was a team of very enthusiastic actors playing elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus who guided us through Santa’s workshop, led us in Christmas songs and fed us delicious cookies and hot chocolate. It was entertaining for sure. I have one small regret. Iris is similar to me in a lot of ways, not so much in others. She’s not shy at all, like I was at that age. So during the interactive tour, she was being, well, interactive. I found myself shushing her, holding her back. Then I thought, why did I do that? I realized since we don’t have a chance to get out much, I don’t have much practice being the parent I want to be. I didn’t hold her back for the remainder of the tour.

The next day, Saturday, we had an appointment to get our pictures taken outdoors at the Eagle River Nature Center. Eagle River is a town closer to Anchorage but the Nature Center is 10 miles out of town, nestled beneath the mountains. I had been there over a decade ago during my Anchorage Field Studies geology class but nothing looked familiar in the winter. It’s such a beautiful place. Trees white with frost and snow, birds and squirrels scurrying about underneath the feeders. Usually Iris wants to be outside but there were too many cool things inside the center to occupy her time. We ended up spending hours there. There was a play area with blocks and colors, three bear skins with heads which we were encouraged to touch and another corner where everything was touchable. Moose and caribou antlers, skulls and pelts of wolves, lynxes, river otters, ermine and others. She was in her element. And if other visitors came close, she encouraged them to come over and touch everything, even telling them what they were. One lady asked if she worked there. My second regret in as many days was that we didn’t return in the evening for the ice lantern walk. They had a short section of the trail lined with ice lanterns that would be lit after dark. I made a rookie mistake. I asked the four year old, who knew absolutely nothing about what was going on, if she wanted to go back to see the ice lanterns. I hear my mom’s voice ringing in my ears: Ach, don’t ask them, they don’t know. So we didn’t go but I sure wish we had. No more regrets. I’m going to do better.

Sunday afternoon, Jennifer and I loaded up the kids and took them to Anchorage to the Zoo Lights at the Alaska Zoo. It was about 14 degrees and we managed to stay out for about an hour and a half. The animals weren’t too active but we managed to see the snow leopard, tiger, coyote, wolf, moose and polar bear butts. And of course the pretty lights.