SANTA

I have been morally opposed to Santa since before I can even remember. I was the kid that told other kids the truth about Santa and I was seriously appalled that parents would "lie" to their children about it. I never thought I would be one of those parents one day. I really didn't want my kids believing and I certainly never planned on perpetuating that belief.

Well here we are. I now have a child and when it came to the Santa debate Brian won out. He was holding firm and not believing was NOT an option.

Austen has been wanting to go see Santa for weeks now. We did a walk by at the mall, but that wasn't good enough. I kept telling him that he would have to sit on Santa's lap and that he would be touching him (he hates strangers touching him or even being in his space) but that did not deter him. Then I started telling him that Santa was busy making toys for Christmas Eve, but that didn't work either. So finally I just decided to let the poor kid visit Santa and get it over with. I was sure he would cry and scream and hate it.

I was wrong...

He loved every second!
Isn't that a good Santa too?

The picture says it all. He wasn't scared one bit!!! When he first sat down he was so in awe that he wasn't sure what to do so he froze. One of the elves kept trying to get him to look over for a picture, so he would just move his eyes and not his head. He finally realized it was ok to move and was smiling and staring at Santa. He told Santa he wanted new dinosaurs (he saw some at Target yesterday) and then we were off.

He has been on cloud nine ever since. He will seriously not quit talking about Santa. He even keeps telling me that his hands are cold just so he can have "glubbs" (gloves) like Santa.