Hot chocolate

We are doing a reading of the Polar Express in the Knox County Schools the three weeks before Christmas.  We have decorated the inside of the Knoxville Dream Center book mobile to look like the inside of a train car.  It's magical!  We park out in front of the school and the kids come out and climb into the "train car" for a ride to the North pole.  

They walk down a red carpet and sit in little red chairs.  We read the story to them while they sip  hot chocolate complete with marshmallows on top!  After a few mishaps (we forget the coal every time so the kids have to sing a Christmas song in order to get enough Christmas Spirit to power the train!)...we are off to the North Pole!

We go to a new school every day and have 5 or  6 groups come to ride to the North Pole and we read the story to them.  Every day as we leave, we ask what stories we each gathered from our time with the kids.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Tommy said as he was passing out the hot chocolate, one little boy said "oh wow!  I have never had hot chocolate before!"  Every time I think of that my eyes fill up with tears.  How much we take for granted!

Another little boy said on his way out..."this is the best day of my life!"

As the children leave they each get a silver bell (off Santa's sleigh, of course) and a candy cane.  They step off the train into snow falling all around them.  Today one of them looked at me and exclaimed in a voice full of wonder...."it really is snow!"  

All of a sudden, it became that to me as well....REAL snow.

What could be better in life than hot chocolate and real snow?  I'll tell you.  The birth of Jesus.

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