My son is a serious train nut. All day long, he talks of pistons, buffers and coal tenders — words I never breathed before he was born but now have a prominent place in our house. He obsesses over which trains to couple together, which engine will make the delivery to the quarry and which one will bring the children in the passenger coaches, over the mountain, to the party (whose party, he hasn’t said). He wakes up thinking about this stuff. It’s pretty hard core.
And while Thomas & Friends are his usual trains of choice, he also loves The Polar Express. So, off we went to ride the New Jersey version this past weekend.
The whole set-up is really cute — it’s an old train (a diesel engine, as my son will specify) on a railway line that they run for special occasions, like the Thomas ride we took over the summer. For The Polar Express, they had the cars all decked out with Christmas lights and decorations. A lot of kids — and some parents — wear their pajamas. The audio version of the book plays over the speakers and they have folks come through the cars and serve the kids cookies and hot chocolate. Santa comes through each car too and the kids even get the little bell from the elves.
It’s all very sweet. And waaaay too long.
Two hours is an eternity to hold any kid’s attention under the age of five. And, since I was far from the only guilty party bringing small kids to this event, you end up with a train full of very antsy, very impatient kids once the novelty has worn off. Our son was pretty good — mostly out of train intoxication — but bringing the baby (she’s 16 months) was like being on a flight around the world without buying her a seat. Our bad.
While she was deciding what damage she could do (to the train and to us), our son, armed with his copy of The Polar Express book, followed along with the story — perfectly content.
Until his sister went after his cookie.
She’s tough, but he prevailed — and (some) order was restored. He got a shiny new train from the gift shop to occupy him for the remainder of the never-ending ride.
And the 16-month old ran the aisles with alternating parents, until she (and mostly we) finally tuckered out a bit.
What a trip. We may, in fact, have gone as far as The North Pole — or so it seemed. Great in concept, long in execution.
Oh, and for the suggestion box: Put some wine in those hot cocoa cups for the adults. Because surely we’ll make the same trek next year in the name of holiday tradition — and parental amnesia.
I’m going to forward this to my friend whose son is also a train fanatic. They go every year to PA to sleep in some claustrophobic caboose.
That’s probably the next step for us, just before my son decides to oversee The NJ Polar Express operations as an adult.