December 22nd

My mom and I took Emma to the St. Regis Hotel for the annual Gingerbread Academy this weekend.  It was our first time there so we weren't very sure about what to expect.  The St. Regis is an extremely nice hotel in my mom's area and it was fun to go inside and look around after driving by it for so long.  The activity could not have been nicer.  I had reserved 1 gingerbread house for Emma and it was so big!  The pastry chef made all of the houses and we were provided with all of the frosting and candy that we wanted to use for decoration.  Emma loved it and all of the staff were very friendly.  Santa made an appearance while we were there.  Emma quickly scooted over into my lap and kept an eye on him as he began visiting with all of the kids.  Up to this point she had been very adamant that she did not want to see him and she certainly kept her guard up while she was watching him.  I asked her if she wanted to go see him (I fully expected to be turned down), but to my surprise she said yes!  We went over and she sat with him for a while.  I heard him ask her what she wanted for Christmas and she told him ALL about Baby Butterscotch (Santa looked perplexed as most people do when she talks about her main wish list item this year).  Emma spotted Baby Butterscotch (he's a large interactive pony) about 4 months ago at Target and it's one of three items that she specifically has requested for Christmas.  Santa told her he would do his best :-) 

Half of me felt guilty for not baking the gingerbread and preparing the frosting from scratch for her.   The other half of me felt good about the fact that I work really hard to help provide for our family and I could take her to such a nice holiday event.  In the end I just decided to cut myself some slack and move on :-)