We have not really even acknowledged Christmas 2007 so far at home. We have no Christmas tree set up yet, no presents piled up on display in the living room, or even wrapped, or even purchased yet. We have not even been playing Christmas music. This lack of Christmas spirit is not intentional; Christmas has just sneaked up on us this year. So today, to get our Christmas spirit kicked off, Kit had the idea to go see the Festival of Trees at the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

We were hoping the Festival of Trees would be sort of like the Christmas Tree Forest that Kit used to go to in Corpus Christi. It turned out to be classier, smaller, and more subdued than the Corpus Christi version. It featured trees decorated up in the traditional style from several different countries, accompanied by a written explanation of Christmas traditions in that country. But it felt more like a display than a forest, and it did not exactly jump start our Christmas spirits.

So we moved on to explore the rest of the museum. Claire was especially excited to see the big, working toy train track. Along the track were little displays of things like ice skaters on a frozen pond, elves working at Santa’s toy factory, construction crews at work on the road beside the track, and countless other things to look at, each with a button to push to make them go. And best of all was the fact that Thomas the Train was running around and around the track. Things were definitely looking up.

After we saw every little thing on the train display, we went outside and came across an old kid-sized playhouse in the garden. Claire knew it was made just for her, and she went right in to explore. She explored each of the three rooms and then made herself comfortable on the little kid-sized wicker sofa. Kit and I mostly stayed outside, letting Claire explore as we chatted about little things like where the heck we will be living in two years, what jobs will we both have, who is going to be president, and other basic unknowns of the relatively near future.

Over our chatter, Claire was sticking her head out of the playhouse’s front window, looking especially cute in her little green Christmas dress, saying what we could best make out as, “You wanna cumbo?” or just “Cumbo!” We replied, “What’s a cumbo?”, but Claire just smiled and kept saying it.

Finally, when Claire said, “You want cheese?” Kit put it together. Claire was asking if we wanted a “combo”, and she was acting like she was a lady at the drive-through window at Wendy’s or McDonald’s, where they always say, “You want to make that a combo?” or “You want cheese with that?” when you place an order. Kit and I were cracking up, because Claire did this with such as big smile on her face but was also trying to act serious, like she really did want to know if we wanted the combo. At least she did not ask us to “biggie size” it for only 39 cents more.