Seeing Santa

Last Sunday we went to see Santa. We decided to go visit the Santa at the mall,put on our Christmas best and ventured out. There wasn't too much of a line--I'd say we were in and out in 40 minutes, tops--so Evan and I took turns standing in line and following Julia as she wandered the mall.

Elisabeth takes seeing Santa very seriously. She has always loved the man, and this year, she had some questions for him. The two most consistent questions that she kept coming up with were: 1.Was she on the nice list? and 2.Is Rudolph real?

Now, I know that we don't have very many years left where she believes. I know that soon, she'll outgrow her undoubting ability to "know" that all things mythical are real. And I dread that day. You see, Elisabeth makes all this fun. She does. She is so sweet in her love of Santa that I don't want her to ever stop believing. One year, she decided that Santa might be tired of having just cookies, so we left him some veggies too (along with the carrots we must ALWAYS leave for the reindeer). Sometimes she'll write him letters and always asks how he is doing. One year she gave him some ideas so he could pick the presents that would be easier for him to make. This year she was concerned about how Santa was getting paid. She's asked him before about his elves and if they get days off. The girl is a Santa advocate, I tell you!

This week, Elisabeth came home from school very troubled. You see, there is a girl in her class who doesn't believe in Santa, and two of Elisabeth's friends were giving this girl a hard time and telling her she had to believe in Santa. This really bothered Elisabeth. We have told her that not everyone celebrates Christmas, so those people don't believe in Santa. Or that some people have different holidays and so Santa doesn't visit them because they have different traditions and customs. She is very interested in Hanukkah and we will probably have to study up on it since she asked if next year we can play the dreidel game and have those pretty candles. I said sure, and now I'm going to have to take a crash course in Judaism so that I can answer all of her millions of questions. (She has also asked when it'll be our turn to be Jewish!) Anyway, Elisabeth went up to her non-believing friend and told her that it was okay that she didn't believe because everyone believes in different things. She felt proud that she helped her friend feel better. As Evan pointed out, it probably didn't occur to Elisabeth that her friend had just outgrown believing in Santa, she probably thinks that her friend has a different religion or tradition. I just love that girl.

So, here we are waiting for Santa.

Here Elisabeth is asking me questions.

I caught her talking on her "phone". I swear my children spend more time on their fake phones then I do on my real one.

Julia in her gingerbread dress.

Julia was shaking this gate like a prisoner in jail.

After she delicately put her foot between the posts, she put her hand in and ate some of the fake snow. It super grossed out the photographer.





Getting bored.

She loves to share her pacifier.

We're next!!!!

She's so excited.

They would not allow us to take any personal camera pictures of the kids with Santa. I almost rebelled, but didn't want to spoil my kids' Santa visit by having their mom hauled off by security. Plus, the "elf" and the photographer were totally eyeballing me to see if I put my camera away since I was taking millions of pictures while we waited.

Needless to say, Julia freaked the eff out when we put her down on Santa's lap. She did not want anything to do with that. Once we gave her back her pacifier, she quit crying but was giving Santa the stink eye, so we took her away so Ebeth could have some alone time with Mr. Claus. She asked him about Rudolph and that Santa was so flipping fantastic. He sat and talked to her about it and told her that the song about Rudolph was written in the 1940s when someone finally spotted him and found out about his story. Elisabeth was beaming when she walked away from Santa. It made my heart sing.