Blake weekend is one of my very favorites of the year. I’ve been there every year for more than a decade, I’ve judged finals more than once, and I’m even an official Friend of Blake. There are certain traditions that are inviolate: every year we go to Manny’s, every year I see people I like, every year I go to a party on Friday night. Since Kiernan’s addition to the party, we’ve added new traditions: we walk to the Macy’s to see the elf display, she comes to visit friends in the tab room. It’s lovely.
This year was no different. I took Friday off work for the festivities, and we had our (almost every year) tradition of going to Hell’s Kitchen in the morning. We took a break in the afternoon for nap time, then K went to my parents’ house and I went to the tournament. I hung out in the tab room and took a shower in the awesome hotel and went to Manny’s and drank less than usual and got a full night’s sleep. So basically, it was spectacular.
Then, this morning I went and picked up Kiernan and she ran around the tab room with Danny and met friends and we walked through the Skyway and up the escalator to see Macy’s “A Day in the Life of an Elf” display. And she LOVED it. She stared in wonder at all the displays and loved hearing the poems read out loud and loved hearing the explanations of why the reindeer were learning to fly. It wasn’t particularly busy, which made it even better. We’ve gone the last few years, but this is the first where she seemed to actually GET the story and be interested in how the parts fit in with her understanding of Santa and Christmas stories in general. So that was neat.
Now she’s still napping and I’m watching episodes of the West Wing and all seems to be right with the world, even though there was meltdown there in the middle and we skipped the Holidazzle on Friday night because a certain short person is still getting over a cold. It’s amazing how easy it is for the good parts to stick out.
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