How I Spent My Christmas Vacation, part II: Christmas Eve on the Strip

So mom's birthday is Christmas Eve and, as a Christmas/birthday present, I spent the day cleaning my parents' apartment top to bottom and making banana oatmeal power cookies. Mmmm. My brother brought a delicious mocha whipped cream cake down with him from one of my favorite bakeries ever in Irvine. Lots of fruit on top of a nice light sponge cake. Very yummy.

After dinner, we all went out to the strip as per mom's request to take a look at the decorations put up at the Bellagio. It was a very windy night and there were tons of people all out. It was very strange to see a crush of humanity on the strip at 10pm on Christmas Eve. It was even stranger to see all the folks at the casinos gambling as well. Call me old-fashioned and a New England gal at heart, but I feel like Christmas Eve is best spent with snow on the ground and in front of a fire...roasted chestnuts optional. Maybe I read Little Women a few too many times growing up. Regardless, it was neat to see the decorations put up, but there were way too many people (and screaming cranky children up way past their bedtimes) around for my taste.
The reindeer were covered in pecans and I liked all the shiny sparkley things. The best, though, had to be the montage of the penguins with the little penguin on a ladder putting a star on top of the tree. So CUTE!

It really just feels so wrong to be in Las Vegas for Christmas though, penguins or not and it made me a little cranky and a little sad. But different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I'll take the mountains over the neon any day.