Stalking Santa

We almost had a holiday disaster yesterday.  Santa was going to be at church for our Christmas bazaar and so we had been talking all week about seeing Santa.  Nicholas had been thinking up questions to ask him all week.  (As a side note, it is so Nicholas to come up with questions instead of a list of requests.)  I could have sworn the bulletin said Santa would be there 11-1, but when we showed up at noon we were told that he was there 9-11 and so was gone.  Oh no!

Nicholas was crushed.  He didn't throw a fit or anything, but he was on the verge of tears.  And I was both disappointed and feeling incredibly guilty.  And so I began trying to think of ways to get him to see Santa.  And then I remembered that Clair had posted about tree lighting festivities in her town (one town north of us).  So I looked it up when we got home and, sure enough, Santa was going to be there and meeting with kids.  So we changed the plan for the day.  Joe was at a choir concert but my mom and I took the kids to the festivities.

We went to see Santa first, since that was the most important objective.  And we're glad we did that first because we had to wait in line for half an hour and just made it before Santa had to take an hour break to participate in the activities around the Christmas tree.  Nicholas was very patient waiting in line. And Elizabeth was zonked.

From 2013 December

When we finally made it to Santa, Nicholas got super-shy all of the sudden.  Santa was totally awesome, but he could only wait so long for Nicholas to be willing to talk since there was a long line and many of those families were going to have to wait out his long break as it was.  Santa did make Nicholas laugh

From 2013 December

and of course I had to get a picture of both kids with Santa

From 2013 December

and Nicholas finally spit out one of his questions (why does Santa live where it is so cold) as we were leaving.

We then met up with Clair and family and got the kids balloon animals, decorated cookies, and decorated ornaments.  Well, the kids decorated things.

And Elizabeth slept through the whole thing.  It was very cold out and we were in and out of buildings, so I had her all bundled up and in the baby bjorn. 

From 2013 December

From 2013 December

It helps that she is suddenly in the last week getting more predictable.  She still doesn't have a real schedule yet but between 6am and 7pm she is going about 3 hours between feedings after a given feeding I can generally predict whether she is going to have alert time and cat naps or a 3-hour nap based on what the rest of her day has looked like. 

So what started as a disaster turned into a delightful adventure.  I love when that happens.