Star Light, Tree Bright

Our town does an annual event called the Star Lighting. The light a huge star for the holidays on top of a tall plateau in our town.

There are a lot of different booths, mostly churches, and music and food. They especially loved all the free stuff that was given away.
This year Gem was part of a caroling troupe that was advertising for the local theater group's performance of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". She is a singer/narrator in the show, and thus was part of the group caroling. The problem was that she had bronchitis and couldn't even talk! Poor thing still trouped around with them while the rest of us enjoyed all the sights. As if this weren't enough fun for one day, we decided to go to the Outlet Mall's Tree Lighting Festival. We missed most of this event, but did get to see the huge tree. I have to say that as pretty as it is, it makes me kind of sad to see a tree that big being cut down for decoration. The kids had a blast and we didn't even freeze. The weather was particularly warm that day (thus the picture of LM is shorts!). It is a great tradition that we will have to do every year.