a visit with the big guy

Heaven help me, I don't really feel like blogging. I'm running low on brain cells these days. However, with it being the most wonder(full) time of the year, the family updates are piling up and if I don't blog soon it will turn into one of those never ending marathon posts that leave you cross-eyed by paragraph seven.

Last week we took Chica to see Santa. She was thrilled with this idea but I made sure to call a pregame huddle to discuss our strategy before the main event. We mulled over how nice of a person Santa is. How kind someone must be to fly around the whole world, doling out presents in honor of Jesus' birthday! We were excited! And upbeat! I was hoping this pre-visit warm up would prepare/brainwash her enough to walk up to an unknown, white bearded, booming voiced man in a red suit without switching into toddler meltdown mode.

It kind of worked. We drove twenty minutes to the mall only to find out I had forgotten to put my memory card in my camera. Dan offered to drive to the nearest Target (not a single store in the mall sold memory cards!) so Chica and I scoped out Santa from a safe distance while we waited.

Soon Dan returned and it was time to meet Santa. She had decided during our stakeout that she'd prefer standing next to him instead of sitting on his knee.
Annnnnd victory! No tears!!

Afterwards, she told her Daddy how the meet and greet went.
Santa even gave her a lollipop for her time- and here I was feeling robbed for forking over a fistful of cash for the mandatory picture package purchase. The Dum-Dum totally redeemed it.
We celebrated our successful Santa encounter with lunch in the food court.
Our morning got even better when we ran into some friends and all played together for a little while.

It was quite a merry day indeed.