Strollin'

As you read this, me and my little family will be strollin' our way to Texas to celebrate Christmas with my clan (well, flying actually). Last weekend, we did a stroll of another kind - a stroll down Centre Street in our town of West Roxbury.

The community has a program called Main Streets that promotes and enhances our town's business district. They had a special event last Saturday called the Holiday Stroll. It started at a restaurant on the other side of town from us (about a 20 minute walk) where you could meet and take your picture with Santa. There, you received a "passport" to get stamped at other local businesses. Most were offering a freebie or some other promotion. For each business you found, you received a stamp on your passport and each stamp was good for one entry in the raffle. I like free things and discounts, being active in the community, supporting local businesses and strolling so we went to take part in the event.

As I mentioned in my last post, this was where Dylan encountered his first Santa Claus of this Christmas season. He was very interested in the balloons surrounding Santa and the fire roaring behind him but was not very sure about the dude in the red suit.

After we got this best attempt at a picture, we strolled on down Centre Street. We had a lot of fun searching out the participating businesses, some we hadn't been to before, interacting with neighbors and doing a little shopping along the way. 2 hours later, Dylan finally decided to take a nap....just in time for the after party where the raffle was being held. After he woke up, we ran over there just in time to find the raffle wrapping up without our hard earned entries. What a bummer!

So, we didn't get any big wins, but we did get some free pizza, donuts, chocolate (I let the boys enjoy those while I stuck to my diet), and tea as well as great discounts on some books, a spa gift certificate, and some gloves for Dylan. There are definitely some things we got that day that I can't recall because our stroller was filled to the brim by the time we got home. I was more disappointed about missing the raffle then I'd like to admit (we spent a LOT of time and effort filling up our passports for that purpose) so I'm trying to focus on all the fun we had that day and great bargains we got!