Visiting Santa

Each year The Children's Hospital holds a private fundraiser event the first part of December. Remarkably, Santa Claus makes a special visit to see all the kids that come to the event. Rita's mom happens to have connections, and was thoughtful enough to invite us along this year. Since it was first thing in the morning, Daddy came straight from work and met us there. Unfortunately, on his way into the parking garage, one of the tires on the car went flat. He was in the process of changing it when we pulled in. He was adamant that he didn't need any help, so we went ahead and joined Rita and her mom inside. At this event, you have the option of seeing Santa first or eating breakfast first. Wanting to avoid standing in line for too long, we headed for Santa right away. It went smoothly until I sat Riley down on Santa's lap. I later learned the best way to introduce a baby to Santa is to back them in, so they keep eye contact with you instead of focusing in on Santa. Not knowing this great tidbit of info beforehand, the inevitable happened. Riley screamed and screamed and screamed. I thought maybe having Connor sit down next to him would help. It didn't.








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After picking out a stuffed animal for each boy, we left Santa behind while his hearing was still intact and headed to the breakfast buffet. It was about this time that Daddy finally made it in. He was a little disappointed he didn't get to see the kids on Santa's lap. He asked Connor what he asked for Christmas, and Connor nearly broke into tears when he realized he forgot to tell Santa what he wanted. Surprisingly, there wasn't a long wait to see Santa, so I told him I would take him in again. One of the hostesses of the event saw us standing in line, and knowing how it went the first time around, told me they would retake the pictures of the kids for no charge since Riley had been such a stinker. Her daughter happened to be standing in line ahead of us, and shared the info about backing him onto Santa's lap. It worked like a charm the second time around. But it wasn't long before Riley realized that if I was standing across from him, it wasn't my lap he was sitting on. He twisted his body around to see who it was, but didn't seem to mind this time. Connor, on the other hand, looked like he was being tortured. I made sure Connor remembered to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas this time. Santa said, "Yep, a Spiderman toothbrush" as he pretended to shoot a web from his hand. I have no idea where Connor got the idea to ask for a toothbrush for Christmas, but I'm not complaining. Once we were done with Santa a second time, we headed back to our table.
We sat around, nibbling on more goodies while we waited for the raffle to start. Connor and Rita entertained themselves as usual. We were able to interrupt their antics long enough to take a few pictures of the two of them together. It was just too cute when we asked them to give hugs, meaning to each other. But they took it literally and hugged themselves. They got it figured out though and gave each other a big, huge hug. Santa made another appearance and began the raffle. Rita ended up winning a prize in the raffle. Connor was pretty disappointed he didn't win anything, but soon forgot all about it. The party ended with all the kids up by the stage with Santa, singing some Christmas carols. All in all, we had a great time. It definitely beat standing in line at the mall, waiting to see Santa!