One Last Christmas Hurrah!

I love Christmas and all the lights and sounds and smells and all, but I am always anxious to get the decorations down after the holidays. It always seems like I have so much more room in my house after I put it all away. New Year's Day has become the day that I do all of that. My hubby always has to work that day so it really isn't a holiday for us so this day is just as good as any other. Once all the decorations were packed away for another year and the tree was taken outside, we headed out for one last Christmas hurrah. After stopping at the NEW Jack in the Box for dinner (by the way it was better than I remember as a kid when we used to call it Barf in the Box)we went to the zoo for their annual Winter WILDland. We have not been for several years but thought it would be fun to try it again. We had a good time walking around seeing some of the animals and all the Christmas lights. We were bummed however that they had the grizzly bears closed. They are our favorite now that they have been added to the zoo. But they had the lions and the giraffe, which are also ones we like. It was not as cold as years past, but there was a chilly wind to contend with. I love the smell of the many bonfires that they have going throughout the zoo. It was pretty crowded, but most of the people had been there since they opened and were about ready to leave by the time we showed up. We rode the skyride to the top of the zoo and that was fun. It is an extra price and unfortunately not free for members, but we thought we better try it once. J is always afraid at first of those types of rides and so she had to go with daddy for protection. She liked the ride down better she told us later. The most fun was the rock wall at the top of the ride. It is not very high, but we all had a great time climbing around in there. We could have spent all night there, but it was getting close to closing time and we needed to get down the skyride. It was a nice evening and a great way to close out the holiday season.