The Return Of The Claus

Once again, Grammy emailed me to let me know that Santa Claus was going to be bringing his sleigh to our street!  And once again, I invited my parents to join us as we waited for a visit with The Claus!  This time, though, we had two little boys to see the Man In Red!  And I was tricky this time... I didn't tell Jack that Santa was coming!  Usually with my OCD kid I have to tell him exactly what to expect all the time, but now that he's a little older I can sometimes get by with just telling him that I have a surprise for him.  He's starting to really like surprises, but he still needs to be prepared in advance for them!  But anyway, I digress...

Dave also was able to join us again, and we were thrilled about that!  Dave stayed in the house and made dinner while the boys, my parents and I went on a walk to see the Christmas lights while we waited for Santa to show up.

Of course, the train was his favorite...

And he thought the present was cool, too.

We didn't have to wait very long at all before the police car came to announce where the sleigh was going to stop, so I called Dave and told him to come out.  Jack was excited to see the police car, but he didn't pay any attention to what he was announcing over the loudspeaker.  He still didn't know that Santa was coming... not until he saw the sleigh coming around the corner!

Jack was first in line, but he chickened out at that last second!  I was so surprised since he loved talking to the Santa at the mall- it's all I can do to get him to stop talking and drag him away from that poor Santa!  I don't know what it was about this Santa that intimidated him, but he said "I just don't want to."  So, we let Sam go first.  I handed him to my dad, with the instruction to just hold him near Santa to see if we could avoid a total freak out... but when I got into position to take a picture I saw that my dad had handed him off to my mom, who didn't hesitate to plop Sam right down on Santa's lap.  He reacted exactly as I thought he would.  

Here's another shot from my mom's angle

Poor kid!  But oh, how hilarious is that picture?!

Then, I tried again to convince Jack that he should go up to see Santa.  First, I told him first that if he didn't tell Santa that he wanted the Chuggington toys for Christmas then Santa wouldn't know what to bring him.  He didn't bite on that one, though, because he said "But I already told him at the mall!"  My kid apparently remembers everything.  Mind like a steel trap, I tell you!  But then, one of the little girls that were helping Santa handed Jack a candy cane.  That was perfect!  I told him "Jack, Santa just gave you a candy cane!  That was so nice of him, you need to tell him 'Thank you'!"  That did the trick!  He said "Oh!  Okay!" and he hopped right on up there, said "Thanks for the candy cane", and turned right around to come back down!  Luckily, I was right behind him and managed to stop him and have him smile for a picture!

And my mom got one, too!

This was the first year that Grammy happened to be home on the same day that Santa was here, so she got to come, too!  Jack told her all about his meeting with The Claus.

And Sam told her all about his traumatic first face-to-face with the Jolly Man.

And just like that, Santa had to go!  But we knew it wouldn't be too long before we saw him again :)