The upside to having friends in Alaska is that they become your surrogate family when your family isn't in town visiting. Which means that Brittney and Duncan got the honor of joining us for the Holiday Train this weekend! None of us had ever been on such a thing, but it sounded like fun anyhow. I think Thomas is technically a little younger than their target audience, but with Santa, caroling and hot chocolate (for us!), how could it go wrong??

Brittney and Duncan were much more coordinated than we were - look how well how all three of them are sporting their holiday colors. (I can take credit for Thomas - his sweater even had a train on it!)

See? And technically black is always coordinating... :)

I let Matt dress himself. I probably should have said something like "Hey, we could get cute Holiday Photos if we all dress up." Thinking of two outfits was challenging enough, obviously... ;)

And Santa finally came around for photos. Let's just say Thomas was not all that impressed. I think he was much more curious who these people were trying to sneak in the photo of him and his dad! The audacity!

All in all, I think everyone had fun... until the very end. Apparently handing out a bunch of candy at the beginning of a train ride guarantees a meltdown of *all* the kids thirty minutes before the train ride is over. I get the feeling it might be Brittney, Thomas and I next year while the husbands either stay home or go skiing... :)