The Magic of Christmas

We don't push Santa Clause in our home. Instead, Ella has been asking for weeks when we are having a birthday party of Jesus! Last week, however, she asked to go see Santa Claus so we took her to visit the jolly old elf. After standing in line for about 20 minutes we finally got to see Santa and neither kid wanted anything to do with him. Miles sat on my lap and stared while Ella hid in the stroller on the opposite end of the courtyard. This is the only half way decent picture we got:



This evening we took the kids to the Holiday Lights display at the Springs Preserve. I decided to see if Ella wanted to go wave at Santa and since there were nutcrackers standing right next to him (she is currently obsessed with The Nutcracker ballet), she agreed to go in and say hi. We meandered up, not wanting to get too close and scare her off, when Santa himself stood up and came over to us! We were no where near the line so I was a bit surprised. He chatted it up with Ella ... and asked her if she was going to be a trumpet player like her Daddy when she grew up...!! My husband is a trumpet player and high school band director so Santa obviously knew us, but we have no idea who he was! Not only did Ella talk to Santa, she gave him a "high five", a hug, and we got this awesome photo:



I don't like to focus on the Santa side of the holidays, but tonight was truly a magical moment to watch Ella warm right up to Santa. It was also fun to realize that even though we live in the "big city" we still have magical "small town" moments!

I hope you have a few magical moments in the next few days!