Sitting with Santa Claus

This year, we decided to take a gamble and take John to see Santa. In years' past, we thought this would be a terrible idea - large crowds of people, a large, strangely-dressed man, and the ultimate test of actually sitting on his lap and talking to him.

We did our prep work early, as you can imagine. For about a month, we've been reading stories at night about Santa and that Santa brings presents at Christmas. We explained to John that his part in this was that he had to go and see Santa, and tell him what he wanted. Last week, we did a test run, where we went to the mall (to the same place we'd ultimately be taking him) and showed him Santa and the line. When he saw Santa, he started to say that he wanted a new bus (go figure!). We told him that we needed to wait our turn.

Judgement Day was Wednesday. The line was long, but Joyce took John to the play area and I kept our spot in line. Once we got close, John came back, and we started reviewing the order of battle: introduce ourselves to Santa, sit on lap, say what we want, get picture taken.

When the moment of truth came, he froze, but just a bit. He came in and we helpfully said "John, say Hi to Santa." Santa was great, and said "Come here John." John then said "Thomas and Percy." Thomas and Percy, as some of you know, are two of the trains in the Thomas the Tank Engine series. Mind you, he already has those two, but hey, we had a conversation going and we weren't going to mess it up. Besides, prior to that, he kept saying he wanted a long bus with kids inside like Mr. Jerry drives. Mr. Jerry is his actual school bus driver, the one he rides to school, and we interpreted John's request as meaning that he wanted an actual school bus. Um...... no......

So anyway, back to Santa. We and Santa convinced John to sit on his lap, and Santa asked his question. John again responded "Thomas and Percy." We then worked on the picture, which as some of you know, getting John to sit for a picture is usually a disaster that involves somehow converting a scared, screaming child into a happy, smiling child. This usually does not work, unless I sit out of sight and tickle him.

On the fourth try, we got the following:

John and Santa Claus

Success!

John then hopped down, and Santa gave him a little book. John looked at the book, and we reminded him of his manners and asked him "What do you say to Santa?" He turned to Santa, and said...

"Thomas and Percy."