Santa Is Real, Twice!

On Friday downtown Ann Arbor and Kerrytown (a specialty shopping area) held a Christmas-time event with the local shops and farmer's market. The stores had "Midnight Madness" with big sales and stayed open until midnight. The farmer's market hosted local artists selling all kinds of Christmas decorations and yummy foods.

Everyone and their grandma was out so it took us a while to find a parking spot. We ended up parking a little ways from downtown, but it gave us a nice chance to warm up on our walk. It was one of the coldest nights, in the low 30's when we were out, but luckily there was no snow. Downtown was decorated nicely with Christmas lights in all the trees - lovely in the dark!

We enjoyed walking through Downtown and even checked out some of the stores. It was craziness within them, though, with everyone's grandma trying on shoes and jackets and looking for a good deal, because grandma's are like that.

We saw and listened to a pretty impressive Elvis impersonator:

We also heard some carolers, dressed in full costume, who kindly allowed me to photograph them:

And then we found him! Our first Santa of the evening! We'd heard that he would be roaming the streets accompanied by Miss Washtenaw County so we'd been keeping our eye out. Once we spotted him we waited impatiently for the light to change and then ran across the street to get a picture.

Jake, Santa, Miss Washtenaw County

We continued walking towards Kerrytown and the farmer's market where we found a winter wonderland.

There were all kinds of beautiful, hand-crafted Christmas decorations:

I really liked these wooden decorations.

There was also good food and a fire pit to warm your hands.

We went into some of the Kerrytown shops and heard some more festive music.

And then we found him again! A second Santa who looked a lot more like the real Santa. Jake deemed the other one an impostor. I mean, do you really think Santa Claus would hang around with a beauty queen? So we had to get some more pictures, this time with the REAL Santa.

On our way back to the car we passed this wintery scene. I thought it was pretty with all the lights and snow.

And one more Santa for good luck!

We're having snow again today and this week's forecast is for cold, cold, cold!

I hope everyone and their grandma stays warm!