Payton's First Pink Pig Expierence

OK for those of you not from Georgia this post is going to leave you saying "What, they ride a pig at Christmas time, those people from Georgia are weired!"

So I feel inclined to give you a little history on one of Atlanta's Christmas traditions.

For those of you who know and love Priscilla the Pink Pig - you may skip and look at the pictures.

For those of you that are interested in the History of the Pink Pig.... here goes

(thanks to wikipedia)

The Pink Pig was a child-scaled monorail that originally circled the toy department in the downtown Store for Homes. After several years, it was moved to the roof of the Store For Homes building. The front car of the train had a pig's face, and the last car had a curly tail. The original train featured Priscilla Pig, while a second train added to the track was named Percival. For many years after the closure of the downtown store, the Pink Pig was set up at the Festival of Trees at the Georgia World Congress Center. During the Rich's-Macy's era, in an effort to show respect for the traditions of Rich's, a redesigned Pink Pig, this time a child-sized train rather than a monorail, was set up on the top level of a parking deck at Lenox Square mall under an enormous pink tent. The train ride takes children (and adults, who can now fit) through a storybook tale of Priscilla Pig. The original Pink Pig monorail cars are now at the Atlanta History Center where they are occasionally displayed.

Drew remembers going to the old Rich's store with his Grandma and all his cousins, I however do not remember riding it at Rich's but do remember riding at the Festival of Trees. So here we are continuing a crazy southern Christmas tradition.

Next year we will go much earlier, as we waited for over an hour and a half in line. It was a lot of fun though - and the kids in line pretty much entertained each other.

Here's Payton waiting patiently (yes, we let her have the Paci for this - don't judge me - I bet parents of the the kids that were crying wished they had a Paci)

Then we had to bring in the reinforcement snacks....we really did wait a long time and it was cold!

The we finally made it to the tent - were at least we were warm while we were waiting!

Grammy even bought Payton her own Priscilla stuffed Pig - which Payton has not put down since and even tried to steal Carsyn's the other day!

Trying to keep her entertained and good was actually a lot of fun!

YEAH! Finally it was our turn! (Don't mid Drew's sour face - he really did have a good time - we just agreed not to bring him next year!)

And after all that waiting, and all those snacks, and then "all" that riding, Payton was ready for a nap. So we didn't make it see Santa yet!

And there you have the story of Payton's first Pink Pig Experience!