2 Santas and Dozens of Trees

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
We had a wonderful time with the family and the days went by too fast.
We had quite a number of people for Thanksgiving Day dinner, and we stuffed ourselves.  Christian managed to uphold the Roth kids tradition and dumped over his drink....twice.  Growing up, my siblings and I didn't make it through a meal for years without someone spilling a drink......history repeats itself :)  He freaked a little when he thought it touched his food, but the food was safe and he continued to chow down.  I think he ate a whole bag of corn by himself, he LOVES corn! I found the first food he doesn't like, pumpkin pie.  He had a great time playing with all the kids, and even though his nose was running and he was cold, he didn't want to come in from outside.

My Mom and Dad babysat Christian Friday afternoon while I ran to pick up a few last Christmas gifts. The roads and stores were still crowded, but nothing like they tend to be in the mornings.  I put him down for his nap before I left and had hoped to be back before he woke up two hours later. Much to my surprise, he took a three hour nap and I made it back about 10 minute after he woke up and I got my shopping all done.
He wants a fire truck with moving parts and sound: siren, flashing lights, doors that open and a ladder the moves.  After three stores, I finally found one!  It is by Tonka, is plastic, battery operated and has all his required features. The ladder is plastic and you can move it up and down and pull one section out to extend it. I am worried the ladder won't last long because it's plastic, but we'll see.  My sister also had a fire engine that her kids outgrew and gave that to him to play with.  The sounds on that one are LOUD!  I found a button on the bottom that turns the whole thing off. I told Christian the batteries ran out because my parents and I couldn't listen to it any more, we had already been hearing it non-stop for an hour. I know I told him a lie, but I think I will be forgiven for the sake of my sanity.

Saturday we headed out early with my sister and her daughter to see Santa.  There is a new store the had it's Grand Opening and was having free photos with Santa. The store, J. Parons, is unbelievable, I fell in love with it. The backdrop for the Santa photos was like a fairytale but I noticed one big thing that was wrong.  Santa was not sitting in his red velvet, gold high back ornate framed chair. I asked where he was and a worker said he wasn't on duty until 10:30 a.m.  It was 9:00 a.m.  I told him that the newspaper said Santa would be there all day, he said sorry, I could wait, but my sister had an afternoon commitment with her in-laws.  So we checked  out the store and I found a few more Christmas ornaments I just had to have :)

So off we went to an annual event, the "Festival of Trees", a creation of a local hospital.  Basically business and/or people can decorate a tree, wreath or 2 ft. tall tree, they are displayed for about 10 days and people bid on them via a silent auction.  Gingerbread houses are also available by silent auction. They have local talent schedule throughout the days: singers, dancers, gymnasts. This year, and I am guessing, they had about fifteen 2 ft. trees, forty 6 ft trees, ten wreaths, and about thirty gingerbread houses. They were all so beautiful, had wonderful unique themes and made me wish I had the space and money to have two trees in my house!
Christian and my niece took a ride on the train the wound around through the decorated trees and then we got in line to get a photo with Santa.  The backdrop was not great, plain actually, but the Santa was amazing!  He was the best Santa I have EVER seen, no kidding!  When it was Christian's turn, he quickly walked up to Santa, held up his arms, Santa smiled, picked him and set him on his knee. Before Santa could say a word, Christian told him he wanted drum sticks and a drum. Santa threw his head back and laughed! Christian did a great job of looking at the camera and smiling, but of course the volunteer photographer didn't catch him at a good time, so the photo isn't great of Christian, but is great of Santa.

They had a kids area for little art projects, and we managed to talk Christian into doing a handprint potholder for me.  He doesn't like his hands really dirty or goopy, so I wasn't sure how this was going to go. We selected the white potholder with red trim and selected the green paint for the handprint. The young kid painted Christian's hand with a roller, we turned it over, pressed it on the potholder and he held so still.  It turned out great!  Then we washed his hands and he proudly rushed over to my sister to show her his handprint, he was so proud of himself.  Time was up and we had to go home.

After seeing that Santa photo backdrop at the store, I really really wanted his photo there and was a little bummed it didn't work out. But the Santa at the Festival of Trees was so good, it was hard to be unhappy with it.  After his nap that afternoon, I was telling my parents all about this new store.  It was so beautifully decorated for Christmas I was telling everyone about it.  Mom said she would like to see it and would go with us if we wanted to go back and we could get Christian's photo.  I was in!  Dad decided he wasn't going to be left out, so we all piled into the car and off we went again.  It was raining and cold all day, so that was annoying. We walked in and no one was in line.  I peeled Christian's coat off, stuffed it in the cart and caught a glimpse of him as he dashed by me to get to Santa.  This Santa was......bad.  What a let down!

Christian did the same thing, held up his arms, Santa picked him up and he told him he wanted drum sticks and a drum.  They took his photo, which will be emailed to me in about a week.  I was surprised because the store is nice, beautiful and the Christmas section was like a dream and then they had this generic Santa suit with the really bad white polyester beard. Now the Santa at the Festival of Trees would have been absolutely perfect in this setting!  So I hope this photo turns out, because Christian was pointing in the other one and one of his eyes is a white light from the camera flash. I don't know how to do photoshop, but I'm going to ask someone I work with if they can photoshop the good Santa into the good backdrop. I know that's cheating, but if that photo works out, I'll post it and you'll see why I did it, it will be fabulous!

It was funny, after Christian told Santa (both Santas) he wanted a drum, he thought he would get the drum right then. It took several hours to get him to understand he had to wait until Christmas to get the drum.....only if he's a good boy, because Santa is watching him. I had to use that line a couple times this weekend and it worked!  I hope it keeps working and I'll use it as long as I can :)
~Amy