Reindeer Festival

Eli and I made our second annual trip to the Reindeer Festival on Thursday. It was exactly the same as last year, but much more fun because of Eli's age. He was thrilled to get to feed the reindeer, and very surprised to learn that they love apples! We also learned that reindeer are the only species of deer in which both the males and females have antlers. This was a little confusing for Eli since he always calls deer with antlers "the Dada deer." Anyway, Eli's two favorite reindeer were Vixenand Olive. Never heard of her? Neither had we. Apparently there's a movie about a dog who mis-hears a radio report about Blitzen being injured and Santa needing to make his run with "all of the other reindeer" as Santa needing "Olive the other reindeer." Anyway, apprently Olive the dog had a species-change operation, because she's definitely a real reindeer. Wow - I digress (big time)! Eli also got to visit Santa in his house, but wanted nothing to do with sitting on his lap! It took lots of coaxing just to get him to take a Hershey's kiss from Santa. :) Maybe next year he'll come out of his shell a bit. Aside from meeting all of Santa's reindeer, the highlight of the festival for Eli was getting to sit in Santa's sleigh. He went back three times to climb into it again. As we were leaving he told me over and over again that he wanted to come back another time and give the reindeer more snacks! The Reindeer Festival was definitely a hit.