Late Night Visit with Santa

Alton had expressed a lot of excitement for Santa to come and leave him presents, but didn't seem to care much about going to see Santa to tell him what he wanted. So we hadn't pushed it and thought that sooner or later we'd get around to taking him to see Santa.

On a whim, 3 days before Christmas we took Alton to Bellevue Square Mall for their 7pm holiday extravaganza called "Snowflake Lane;" complete with a large line of "drummer boys/girls" and fake snow falling in-time to the holiday music. Walking through the mall, on the way to the street level, we had to bypass Santa Center, complete with flying reindeer and replica of Santa's workshop. Apparently this display suddenly motivated Alton to seek out an audience with the Big Man....Alton and about twenty thousand other children!

We tried to distract him with Snowflake Lane, dinner and rides up and down the glass elevator to no avail. "Mama, I need see Santa" was his mantra regardless of the diverson offered. We finally gave in at 8:45pm and got in the very, very long line figuring that eventually he'd get tired of waiting in line and drop out. To our great surprise, he stuck it out for the entire hour and a half! As he approached the sleigh, we held our breath, wondering if he'd actually talk to Santa or if he'd decided to suddenly be shy and hide behind us. Again he surprised us by walking right up and into the sleigh! He didn't want to sit on Santa's lap, fine by us, and compromised by sitting next to Santa on the sleigh. He turned and smiled perfectly for the camera, told Santa he wanted a train (we were ready for that) and then added a horse with a saddle to the list (where'd that come from?) He chatted it up some more, received his sucker, then stood up on the seat of the sleigh, making a clear jump 3 feet to the floor below in classic skateboarder style. By the time all was said and done it was 10:15 pm.

Here's the picture just to prove it's actually a true story!