santa visit : third time's a charm

We trekked off to the mall on Wednesday to visit Santa.

Despite all three of us having colds, we headed out that morning (uh, well, 11am...as early as I can manage with two kids) and met Hubby so he can share in this always very joyous experience.

Ha.

The past two years we've done our due diligence and taken Cormac to visit the man in red,

only to see him make disgusted faces or flat out throw a tantrum

I know there are many parents who can relate.

Here is Cormac his first Santa visit, four months old...

Santa looks amazing.  Cormac looks like Santa smells bad.  This is literally the best picture I have from the experience.

The next year was, in fact, worse.  

We saw Santa at Paul's work's "kid party."

Amid the pizza and bouncy house fun, 

Santa arrived.

He may as well have been an ax murderer.

My 1 1/2 year old was not happy, 

clearly...

Then they hit the age of two, 

and suddenly Christmas is less "fun you force upon them" and

becomes something magical they actually want to be involved in.

This year, we started hyping Christmas early (both Santa Clause lore and Jesus' birthday) and he has been watching Christmas movies on Netflix since way before Thanksgiving.

He can sing Jingle Bells, Up on the Housetop and Oh, Christmas Tree.

This year, I knew our Santa experience would be much, much different.

And it was...

He was too scared to ride the train, any coin-operated animal, or the merry-go-round at the mall

("Maybe when I am older," he told me.)

However, this year, he was able to sit on Santa's lap and declare emphatically that for Christmas he wanted "A d-ire engine!" 

Oh, and smiled dutifully for mama (who incidentally had to be told by Santa to stay off the rug if I wanted to take my own photos.)

I couldn't have been prouder.

Oh, and Finola was there, too.  She made weird faces.

But at least I expected that, this time around.

:)