We wanted the kids to look nice so preparations needed to be made days earlier in order that this could occur, not for any benefit of Lexi's, she absolutely loves getting frocked up. Tabitha however finds dresses to be not quite her cup of tea. So we had to have a few trial runs frocking up before the big day. Thankfully it was worthwhile.
We arrived there at around 10 or so to a line some 9 families deep. That may not sound like a huge amount, but if you allow even just 5 minutes per family that still adds up to a 45 minute wait. As it was santa was no grinch and spent a decent amount of time with every family which meant the waiting time was pretty well double that.
Angus had awoken merely minutes before we headed out the door and was basically fanging for a bottle, so it was a race to get to the santa line just so that I could give him a bottle. Due to the lack of seating and whatnot I just gave it to him while he sat in the pram and that worked rather well. He had a drink, I picked him up for a bit of a burpy, and then he sat back down, had some more of his bottle and promptly fell asleep for half an hour. Gold!
Lexi was spending quality time with dad as they ran a few little errands while we waited in line. Tabitha, who usually has a sleep between 10 and 10.30 for a few hours was starting to look a little fatigued. She was sitting in the pram, oh so quietly, just watching the world go by. Then she would perk up a bit, laugh and throw her head around, then get quiet again. It was amusing to say the least. As the time approached 11 o'clock, the tiredness started to come into play a little more and Tabitha spent some time cuddling Mick and watching passers by, some of whom would stop and comment how sleepy she looked (as if we weren't aware) and chuckle at how gorgeous kids were (and of course we would agree!). As the time hit 11.30am I remembered that I had a grocery delivery coming, the delivery window being 12 til 6, and there was no way we would be home by 12. So I checked my mobile phone, and saw a missed call, panicked it was Woolies running early, returned the call only to go to voicemail of someone who I didn't recognise, so then I was concentrating on trying to work out who this could possibly be.
Anyway, back to Santa. I had a feeling that after Angus awoke from his little nap he might get the party started. Not in a crying sad sort of way, in a let's go red in the face and see what we can do in this nappy kind of way. I was right. Call it mother's instinct. And he chose to do it as we were at the front of the queue. As you would. So there's me, after having prayed for the line to move quicker for the last hour and half, praying that the people before us would take that little bit extra time so that I could remove the offending fragrance from Angus's nappy and get him all cleaned up before his first meeting of Kris Kringle. Luckily (although not for the parents) the young boy of the family in front of us decided Santa was in fact a rearranging of the letters of his name (Satan) and freaked out completely. This did buy us a little more time.
We had concerns also for the family behind us. It was a single mum and her mother, with the single mum's three kids who were 2, 3 and 4. Cute little girls, however 2 of the 3 expressed some hesitation and seemed to get more and more anxious the closer to Santa they got. And everyone knows that crying in children, just like yawning in adults, is highly highly contagious.
We FINALLY got to the end of the line and approached the big red fellow. And Lexi's eyes have never been wider! I firmly believe that the little personalised message we did for the girls at Portable North Pole had a huge impact on taking away the scariness that Santa can hold!!
We managed to get a great picture, with all of us in there, not just the kids. And I am rapt. And my heart could burst I'm so proud of my little folks. Absolutely bursting with pride. Santa spent so much time talking to Lexi asking what she wanted, and if she'd been good, and he was even able to guess the things that she loved to do (which freaked me out just a little bit). It's funny you know, they say that Santa has lots of helpers and they go to all the shopping centres, but this guy, he was the real deal. I kid you not. Such a lovely Santa.
After many attempts to get everyone to look to the front, some of which involved puppets, some involved bubbles (which in my opinion is a ridiculous idea because Lexi spent the entire time pointing at the bubbles and Tabitha spent the time watching them fall to the ground or trying to get them to pop on her arm). But we managed to get one with us all looking somewhat forwards, although the kids weren't smiling, but after nearly 2 hours waiting and behaving so well, well, I was chuffed. And I love the photo.
When we got home we chilled for a bit, Tabitha had a sleep which she desperately needed, even though she did go insanely hyper for a bit after we got home, and then in the afternoon I asked Lexi what she wanted for dinner. "Blue rice" was the answer. Random? Not really. She is addicted to a TV show called Mister Maker, and a friend very kindly sent a DVD of this show to the girls once they cut the show from TV. They watch it so often. Soo so often. And on one episode Mister Maker (who is basically a crafty let's make it young MacGyver sort of fellow) makes a clay boat in a bottle with blue rice as the sea. So anyway, I added some dye to the rice, popped it in to cook and bob's your uncle, blue rice.
Note to self - if children have blue rice the night before, PREPARE YOURSELF for what you may see in the nappy the next morning, for if you don't you will just about have a heart attack. That is all.
Oh, and here's the santa photo.....
And in case you remembered that I couldn't work out the person that had phoned that I had missed, I remembered, phoned them back, and was told that it was a competition I had entered into and had won a cookbook and they wanted my address. Great day all round :)
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