Santa Success!!

My last post was about Santa Fail, so naturally, I need to follow that up with a Santa success post.

I love traditions. If I do something around the same time for just 2 years, it becomes a tradition. So I made a our Christmas Eve Santa visit tradition.

On most mornings, we get up at an ungodly hour (just wait until you are 13 Evan Asbell...just.you.wait). I decided we should take advantage of our early birds. Christmas Eve is usually a very long day for a 4 year old. The excitement of Christmas, family in town, and a pending party (teaser for the next post) is a lot for a 4 year old. Last year, because the holidays are busy, we didn't get to see Santa until Christmas Eve morning. It was the perfect time! We got there as soon as the doors opened. No line...no wait...a good long conversation with Santa. And Luke even let us put him on Santa's lap!

Last year's visit to Santa.

This year, we talked Santa up pretty big with Luke. We have several Santa decorations around the house. We went on Santa scavenger hunts with yard decorations while we drove around. We ho-ho-hoed every chance we got. This year, Evan, of course knew Santa, recognized him and jumped in his lap no problem. Luke pointed to Santa, said "Santa ho ho ho" and smiled the biggest sweetest little smile ever. I asked him if he wanted to sit down beside him and Luke jumped right up on the couch.

Because he has a little stranger anxiety, he jumped down as soon as the nice worker asked him if he wanted to sit on Santa's lap. I thought we were done at that point. He was still smiling so I decided to push it a little further. I picked him up and used my best 'mommy-eze' voice and said, "Let's sit on Santa's lap." He went with it AND smiled!!