A Big Kid's Christmas Party

Yesterday was the Wing Children's Christmas party on base. Since we have no children, I guess this technically wasn't for us, but we checked it out anyway. Each year at the party, games, food and activities are set up for the children. Then Santa arrives on a P3! The fact that Santa comes to the party on a plane, not a sleigh, was really intriguing to me because I'd really like to know how many children go through life arguing with non military children about what type of aircraft Santa flies. I can see it now "No silly. Santa does NOT fly in a sleigh with reindeer. He flies a P3."

I wanted to see this tradition of Santa in the P3 so Mr. V and I went off to the children's party. Before we left, he read the schedule for his squadron and saw that one of our friends was scheduled to fly Santa in. We got in touch with his fiance to see if she wanted to join us, and she did, so the 3 of us set out to go be big kids at a little kid's party.

We saw 2 P3s flying around when we got there and of course assumed that one of them had Santa in it, so we were trying to watch it land. We even took pictures of both planes, so that my friend could say that she saw her fiance actually flying (we planned to ask him which of the 2 planes he was flying). So after spending 15 minutes watching the planes fly around, we went inside to watch Santa arrive. It was really a neat tradition. The hanger doors open, and a P3 slowly drives up to the hanger, and Santa gets out, greeted by a crowd of cheering children. When my friend's fiance got out of the plane, we asked which plane he had been flying (the first one we saw land, or the second one) and we found out that we had been watching 2 planes, neither of which he had been in. I was somewhat disappointed to know that Santa is not actually flown around in the P3. He was just driven around for a while, but they never actually flew in the air. (so unfortunately, we had pictures of planes flying and landing, and my friend can't say that either of the planes was flown by her fiance.) Considering how often P3s break, I guess this actually makes sense though. I had been wondering what would happen if the plane was broken and Santa couldn't fly in ("Sorry kids, Santa won't be bringing presents this year. His plane broke."). I guess nothing much can go wrong driving around on the ground, which is why the plane never actually flew.

After watching Santa arrive, we got a tour of another P3. A plane was in the hanger for the kids to go into, so while they were busy waiting in line for Santa, my friend and I were given a tour of the plane our significant others fly. This was the first time I ever saw the inside of the plane Mr. V flies, and it was....interesting. I knew the planes were old, but they really LOOK old on the inside, so that was a little shocking. Interesting, but shocking. We took some pictures of us in the plane, then headed off to a quick lunch, then back home. (I'll post the pictures when I can figure out where Mr. V hid the camera.)

We had one last meeting with our petsitter yesterday afternoon, so we are all set to go on vacation in 2 days (if you can call going home a "vacation").

Then last night we had dinner at our friend's house, learned how to play Spades, and spent a few hours over there last night playing cards.

I am happy to report that while we were over there last night, snow started falling! I have been living in hot southern states for way too long because this is the first time in a long time that I have seen snow! In the time that we left out house, ate dinner, and played cards, at least a half an inch had fallen! Mr. V was beside himself with excitement and kept leaping up to look out the window every 5 minutes. It was a slippery drive home, and this morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground! I never thought I'd see the day when an inch of snow would excite me this much, but it looks so pretty outside, I can't help but be excited. Mr. V has been taking pictures of the snow since last night, so when I locate the camera I'll post again with those pictures!