24Days of Joy!
A Countdown to Christmas
In all the years I've lived in Pittsburgh, I have never gone to PPG Place Wintergarden for their "Santas from Around the World" display, and I was really excited to take the kids.
There are statues of Santa from various countries on display around a miniature railroad that circles hundreds of gingerbread houses. Seemed awesome!
Ummmm... not so much, actually. I hate to offend anyone that might be a lover of this annual event, but Greg and I thought it was a bit of a dud. It was kind of... boring. There were tons of people there, so it was hard for our little ones to get a close look at the gingerbread creations, and the Santas were not much more than some statues scattered about with little plaques in front of them detailing the Christmas traditions of another country. Not really something you could take in and enjoy with, say, an eight-year-old, two six-year-olds, and a wiggly toddler determined to escape his stroller. They liked the seeing eye dog that was next to us better than the train or the gingerbread village.
We left pretty quickly and walked down to Market Square, which was set up like a European shopping market for Christmas. It was cute, but really not very kid-friendly. In my mind I'd envisioned little stalls selling European baked goods and steaming cups of hot chocolate... Instead we toured a few rows of huts full of Christmas chotskies. Sheesh, I hate chotskies. I even hate the word chotskie. I saw a Dunkin Donuts across the square like a beacon in a dark night, and we made a beeline toward it in a feeble attempt to make good on our promise to the kids that this was going to be a super fun experience.
Ya win some, ya lose some. We still had fun :-).
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