December 9th
On the afternoon of the ninth we went to the Kansas City Museum, a local history museum. Starting in 1935, in an attempt to compete with Macy's Santa, the Kline's Department Store would hire a pretty young woman to play the Fairy Princess. Children would confide their Christmas wishes to her and then have their picture taken with her. About 10 years ago the museum revived this local tradition. Coupled with displays of antique toys and model trains, they set up an area for the Fairy Princess, recreating the same area that the department store had. For the nominal fee of five dollars per child, they get their picture taken with the Fairy Princess and receive a small silver bag of "goodies". The girls got toy plastic crowns, rings and bracelets and the boys got big plastic frogs, a flip book and a movie poster of Thomas the Tank Engine. I thought it was cute that they had "princesses" and "frogs".