Holidays Year Round

It has been quite warm here recently...I define quite warm as upper 90's to low 100's warm. It has been so hot and we have become so acclimated to the heat that on July 4th, when the nighttime air was a cool 75, Maddy and I wore jeans and fleeces!

You would think this kind of summer oppression would dissuade a 2 year old from having haunted fantasies and dreaming of white Christmases...nope! Madelyn spends a good part of each day dedicating her play to one of these holidays. We watch Christmas movies, we wear our Halloween costume, we play "dark and spooky forest" (her imaginary game involving haunted places, ghosts and witches), we watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and we sing Christmas carols.

Her new favorite possessions are a pumpkin from Michaels (yes, Halloween is out at Michaels), a box from Hallmark that screams and plays haunted house noises when you open it (she stores her beloved piggy in this joyful box) and what we affectionately call "Spooky Snoopy". Spooky Snoopy is a stuffed Snoopy from Hallmark that is dressed as a mummy and mummy walks across the floor to "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Madelyn not only tells us that the song is by "Edvard Grieg" but she feels it is her duty to conduct Snoopy as walks across the floor as if she was standing in front of the Cleveland Orchestra. Here is a picture of Madelyn and her favorite Halloween things:




Here is a video clip of Conductor Madelyn and the Spooky Snoopy Orchestra:

Madelyn and Spooky Snoopy.

Besides Halloween, Madelyn also has an unseasonal obsession with Christmas. Her current interests are in a Christmas card from last year that plays "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and last year's Disney Christmas Special "Prep and Landing". We play with the card all day and watch Prep and Landing as our cool down routine before bath and bed. It's very festive around here.

Here is Madelyn and her Christmas "story", as she calls it:

Christmas in July.

I suppose we also have been doing some actual summer activities around here. We go to the pool all the time (Madelyn is sporting a better tan than me!), we try to play at the playground when the slides are not as hot as the surface of the sun, we saw fireworks on the 4th of July, we went to the beach and we have gone to Carowinds (our local amusement park) to practice riding rides for Disney.

Here is Madelyn's first fireworks...after the initial shock (and shut eyes), she really enjoyed them! She looked so festive in her Firework Finery!




Here is Madelyn's first ride on the cars, her first spinny ride (not her favorite as you can see) and Maddy meeting her idols, Snoopy and Woodstock (whom she tried to pry off the bench), at Carowinds:





We have also been doing a lot of playing with Grammy since Daddy has been out of town (I apparently get very boring). They like to get all dressed up and then watch movies and eat popcorn - it ranks pretty high on the Madelyn fun meter!



It has been an eventful summer so far and hopefully all of this holiday preparation will come in handy when the actual holidays roll around.

So for now Happy Halloween and Merry Christmas from the Barry's!