Charles Dickens Christmas Festival in Skaneateles, NY

We enjoyed our tradition of visiting the cute little lake town of Skaneateles, NY for their annual Charles Dickens Festival. We enjoy going up on Thanksgiving weekend and starting off our holiday season. It's always very cold and fun. Snow just very lightly blew around all day. It was perfect! It didn't actually stick and it was not enough to get you wet, just enough to make you feel like it was winter and Christmas.

Here we are all bundled up.

Mother Goose reads stories at their cute little town library. She's dressed the part and the girls love it!

Evelyn and Hannah had fun getting dressed up in the clothes of the times. Here they are trying to fan themselves in a way that would let a young man know that they thought he was handsome.

Allison thought that all the dressing up was pretty boring and that she'd rather just take her normal afternoon nap.

Evelyn loved getting dressed up and then having everyone look at her. It was funny to watch her try to fan herself.

This lady helped this young lady dress up in some of the many layers that a young woman would have worn in that era. If her father was wealthy she would have so many different layers on that when she was ready to go out she would have added an extra 33 lbs. That's like being full-term-pregnant all the time but never getting to actually deliver. It was to show everyone that her dad was wealthy and could afford to have her dressed like that,to brag for her dad. Not sure I'd be a fan of that!

Since we went on a Friday, they did not have doughnuts and cider and hot coco, so we went to a little bakery and got some yummy donuts.

Evelyn and Allison always love to sit on Father Christmas or Santa's lap, because they know they will get a treat. And since they know that's what they'll get, that's what they tell him they want for Christmas. They just want a candy cane, or candy. Here's what Evelyn told everyone the week or so before Christmas when they asked what she wanted Santa to bring her, "Whatever Santa wants to bring me." How easy is she! Made my job easy.

It's amazing how much we tried to get the girls to understand what Christmas is really about. They were always able to answer right, that is until Christmas Eve and Christmas. I guess we'll just have to work on that more next year.

It's kind of hard to hold onto a little candy cane when you have fluffy mittens on.

Father Christmas, Scrooge and Marley riding in the parade to start the Dicken's Festival.

Many of the other town characters riding on the horse drawn hay-ride. We got there early enough to wait in line to go on the hay-ride this year. We only 1/2 froze while we waited about 1/2 hour. But of course the girls loved it and it was worth it!

Here are a bunch of girls waiting patiently for our turn to get on the hay-ride. Scott was a little outnumbered. Erin and her 4 girls came, then Scott's own 4 girls. He's such a good sport. Our friends the Burke's came too but they were not in this picture so the two boys in their family didn't do much for this picture and Scott's outnumberedness.

Allison got cold while waiting for our turn so she climbed in the stroller and Scott tucked her in with his extra jacket. Aren't her little blue eyes so sweet!

I had to poke her cute face out for a picture.

Evelyn and Allison waiting patiently for our turn.

Evelyn and Bailey spun around this sign post for the longest time! I love their little friend Jordan's wisdom when he told "Hey Evelyn that makes you dizzy." I agree. It made me dizzy, just watching them.

This sweet girl loves her daddy so much! I don't blame her, I think he's pretty awesome too! And so fun to snuggle!

Tiny-Tim with his family out on the streets caroling.

I think that's the only bite that Allison took of her hot dog when we went to dinner before heading home. She mostly ate the french fries and my chicken and Scott's fish.

The fish tank that they had at "Doug's Fish Fry" is pretty cool. It had lots of brightly colored fish. It confused the girls a bit though. They couldn't not understand why these were not the fish we'd be eating if we were going to be eating fish.

They also love the train that goes around by the ceiling the whole time. They think it's especially cool when it drives right over their heads!