Claus Tales

One of our holiday traditions (even though we're Jewish) is going to see Santa. It started when Squash was just a little Squash, and looked like this:

[Santa and Squash, December 2003] Unfortunately, things soon progressed to this:

[Santa and Squash, December 2004 (guest appearance by Mommy)] But then this:

[December 2005] And then this:

[December 2006] 2007 is the year that shall not be noted because my computer crashed and I lost several months worth of pictures. Poor Noodle, no shots of her first visit with Santa. But fear not -- by the time she turned two in 2008, we were torturing her as well:

[Santa and Squash and Noodle (with Mommy!), December 2008] Noodle was still terrified in 2009. Daddy did the honors of leaning her in toward Santa:

[Santa and Squash and Noodle (with Daddy), December 2009] And then there was last year -- our first Christmas with three kiddos. Truck promptly told Santa what was what:

[Santa with the brood - Squash, Noodle and Truck, December 2010] Which brings us, in a long round-about way, to this year. Our bank does a meet-and-greet with Santa on a Saturday morning. It is very low-key, not crowded, and they give you free pictures, so we always go. It's next weekend. BUT -- the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we needed a couple things from Wal-Mart (light bulbs, bananas, the basics), and I remembered I needed gift tags. So we went into Wal-Mart Christmasland, and who was sitting there on a big display of Pepsis but MR. CLAUS HIMSELF! He was there all alone. His elf asked us if we'd like to say hello, and Noodle marched right up and sat down with him. They had a chat. Then Squash went over and relayed his requests (I told him to sit NEXT to Santa, not ON Santa - he's 8, after all). Finally, it was the turn for our skeptical Truck who had been in the cart the whole time. Luckily, he had watched his brother and sister be rewarded with candy canes, so he was totally cool as he walked over, sat on Santa's lap, smiled for the camera, then grabbed his candy cane (shouting "MOMMY, OPEN PLEEEEASE! OPEN PLEASE!") They gave us a free 5x7 print of each kid with Santa, plus another one they did of all three kids with Santa. I was impressed. And did I mention NO ONE - NOT ONE KID - cried? Bonus. We'll see how it goes at the bank next weekend.