An Early Visitor

We had a surprise visitor last week (well, surprise for the kids. We were in on the deal).  But nonetheless, it was a nice Christmas surprise. We first got the kids in the Christmas spirit with some crafts.

We moved on to a quick traditional Christmas dinner consisting of take-out pizza and juice boxes.  Complimented by an arrangement of hilarious fart jokes (well, the jokes were hilarious for the kids, and the kids’ reaction was hilarious for us)

We then settled into a viewing of the Polar Express

And then…

jaws dropped, eyes widened, and each of the kids had their own unique reaction. 

Our friend, Callie was absolutely enamored with Santa. I think she would have been content to sit on his lap all day and chat it up with the Big Guy.

Cooper and Santa got to do some math problems together. If math wasn’t Cooper’s favorite subject before, it is now!

Caydence just stood next to Santa for most of the visits and patted his coat, leg, boot, whatever she could get her little hand on.

We thought that Soren, our creative, abstract, story teller we be totally wrapped up in the magic of Santa, but that little bugger was the skeptic of the group.  After Santa arrived, his first statement was “That’s not Santa. That’s just an old man in a suit. Santa has never come to our house before. Why would he come now?  I am going to take his hat off to see if he is real!”  After reviewing some of the video, at one point Soren even did sneak up behind Santa and was going to pull his hat off but someone stopped him. Seriously…Nonetheless, when it was Soren’s turn on Santa’s lap, he did give some serious thought to their conversation. “Just in case” it was the real Santa. Timmy told Santa all about the battles he wanted to have with his requested Imaginex sets. Bodie tried to show Santa how old he was on his fingers. It proved a bit more challenging than he anticipated. He then talked to Santa about his one and only wish for Christmas, M&Ms  (well, that and money, but we told him Santa doesn’t bring money).  Nick told Santa about the Star Wars Lego Death Star but then they got down to business. Santa explained to Nicholas that if he ate cookies at every house, he wouldn’t fit down the chimney by the end of the night. So Santa made a special request from Nick to leave him a small side salad with fat free dressing.  Nick seemed to hang on his every word and I have no doubt that he will deliver on this promise!

Santa read a story and sang songs. But of course the kids’ favorite part was opening the presents from Santa. It was about this time that all, and I do mean all, of Soren’s skepticism vanished.  Soren had asked Santa for a headlamp and Santa absolutely delivered!  Soren slept with his head lamp that night and went to sleep saying, “I can’t believe Santa came to our house!”

A big thank you to Beepa for his connections with the Big Guy!