I know the Christmas has passed but I wanted to get this memory down before it fades…

It was 2 weeks before Christmas and Chrissie was out shopping so I decided to take the girls to see Santa Claus as he arrived, by helicopter, at the local mall parking lot.

I met up with the family of Chrissie’s good friend Liza and after spending sometime cruising the local toy store we all headed over to Santa’s landing pad. We’d gotten their in case there was a large crowd and Leina, who had been very excited to see Santa this morning was become more and more frustrated as wait continued. She was now beginning to think this whole trip was just an excuse to let Dad play with in the toy store.

So I picked her up and now had the small kid in the backpack and the large one in my arms. Santa soon arrived, just as foretold, and he immediately jumped out of his helicopter (he wasn’t driving) and proceeded to greet kids at the other end of the line. Both Liza and I were very disappointed at this. After watching Santa meet ‘n greet all the excited boys and girls across the parking lot I calculated it’d take an hour for him to get over to us. Leina was not going to make it that long – she wanted Santa now!

So Liza and I – cunning parents that we are – bustled the kids out of the line and stealthy cut in at a much close part of the line only a few minutes from Santa. I’m sure there were some cross parents at our presumptuousness but I’m sure once they heard Leina pining for Santa Claus they cut us some slack.

By this time though Leina was getting very agitated. She wanted Santa but she was tired and hungry. We’d been practicing what she was going to ask Santa for all morning but as he got closer and closer to her she started to freak out. As he finally made it to us she burst out in tears and cried, “I’m scared of Santa Daddy!!”

So there I was holding this wailing child who had waited so long to see Santa but just couldn’t handle it anymore. The Santa was a great guy, he laughed and joked but just couldn’t get Leina to stop crying. Finally I said, “ok Leina let’s go, say bye bye to Santa.”

In one instant, just as I turned to leave, she stopped crying, looked at Santa and yelled, “JACK-IN-THE-BOX” as loud as she could then burst back into tears.

The Santa must have jumped back a foot and just laughed and said, “I know what you want for Christmas little one! Ho Ho Ho.”

So, mission accomplished. Leina got to let Santa know what she wanted for Christmas – tears and all.

From the pictures below you can see that Santa delivered