This year Josie learned that some kids write a letter to Santa. Probably from one of the books from the library. This one was a great one for anyone interested in the history of Santa. I sat down with her to write it. She thought she needed to tell Santa where we lived so he could bring our stockings, thus the beginning of the note. Then I reminded her we’d be traveling. She suggested he could just leave them on the front porch and we’d get them when we get home. What patience! But I intended to bring our stockings with us so I suggested that maybe she could ask him to bring them to us in Florida. She agreed, but again didn’t know what to write. So I told her that kids usually asked Santa for things in their stocking. So you can see what she asked for below in the picture [click on it to make it bigger]. Remember Santa, above all, you should be polite.

She signed her name and wrote Santa on the envelope and I scanned it before she dropped it into the mailbox. I expect the post office gets a lot of mail like this at this time of year.

So that sent me onto the hunt for candy canes, a picture (of unspecified variety), and a thank you note, but I was sick, so I delegated. My mother in law bought some festive candy canes. Javier drew a cute picture of the north pole and Jordi wrote the thank you note. I think the picture was her favorite part of the stocking as she decided she wanted to recreate it herself on Christmas day as shown in the photo below.

Earlier in the month, after she had written the letter to Santa we had gone to the mall to buy my dad some pants (with him). It was a Thursday afternoon around 4 and so things were relatively quiet. I pointed out to Josie the Santa sitting and taking pictures from far away on the second floor. She was interested but wary. We bought the pants and then went down for a closer look. I asked Josie if she wanted to go say hi, she didn’t. But she wouldn’t walk away. Finally as we go to leave, she says she wants to say hi. Thankfully there is no line and I drag her through the maze to get in. We decline the pictures and I try to walk up to Santa with Josie, but she prefers a more comfortable 10 foot distance between them. My dad walks Celia up closer and at about 5 feet away she starts to cry and reach back for me. This seems to be a normal Santa reaction I find as I look at my friend’s pictures. Why do people do this again?

To continue, I tell Santa that Josie wrote him a letter and that gets her going a bit to actually walk up to a more comfortable 5 ft speaking distance. She tells him where to bring the stockings and he asks her what she wants for Christmas. And she is silent. Santa then starts making suggestions and I hope he notices the death stares I am giving him as I am not too thrilled with his ideas as they are largely plastic, big and loud. Then he offers a candy cane and Josie is won over enough to touch him and take the candy. He gives the Celia a candy despite me saying no thanks, which I then have to take away because she puts everything in her mouth. She continues to refuse to sit down but she just wants to stand there and stare pretty much. Thankfully no one is in line behind us for a bit, but we eventually drag her away.

I’m very curious about what she thinks of all this but she isn’t sharing. Later on, at Christmas, she tells cousin Sonya that there is one Santa that lives at the mall, and another at the north pole. So I ask her what the Santa at the mall does the rest of the time. ‘Oh he goes shopping and walks around.’ We’ll have to keep our eyes out for him if we ever go again.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 9:10 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.