Tis the Season

We've been enjoying December and all of the Christmas fun it brings with it. I'm not too into Santa Claus this year and if you ask me what I want for Christmas, I'll tell you a candy cane. So really, with just a candy cane on my wish list, I don't have any need to sit on the lap of a big stranger who's dressed in red fur and makes loud laughing noises. Don't get me wrong, I've seen him a bunch this month - at the neighborhood Christmas party I walked by and accepted a candy cane and in San Francisco I walked up, gave him a high five and again, accepted a candy cane.

So when my parents had an idea of visiting his workshop at the National Christmas Tree, I said, "no thank you." But my mom reminded me there are three people in our family and that SHE wanted to stop in the workshop; so I obliged. I did state aloud, "I won't go near Santa if he says, 'Ho Ho Ho'." Really, is that necessary? But as we walked through the workshop and checked out all of the cool stuff, I suddenly felt a bit brave. As we approached Santa and my parents offered to have me walk past, I said, "I'll stand on the step." And then before I knew it, the big guy scooped me up and plopped me on his lap - TRICKY! No words were exchanged, but he gave me that look that he knew the candy cane was on my list so I think we're good.

Last night we had friends over to go caroling. Unfortunately rain started falling about 10 minutes before we were to start strolling the neighborhood. So we all grabbed a Christmas hat and an instrument and decided we could have a sing-a-long indoors. I chose the ever popular "Christmas helmet" for my hat and the popular "Christmas maracas" for my instrument. Each kid also got to pick their favorite Christmas carol - jingle bells, frosty, etc. I picked the internationally, well-known ABC song. So while it doesn't exactly mention Christmas, every letter in the song is needed to spell all of the Christmas words - so there, don't judge. And besides, it was one of the only songs everyone knew all of the words too. It turned out to be a great night with lots of holiday cheer!