Uncomfortable and Less Joyous

Poor Maddie is very uncomfortable right now because she has a runny nose. She's napping right now and snoring like, well like her Grandpa Fuzzy.

And that brings me to the less joyous part. Rob's Dad Fuzzy kind of looked like Santa - a very round belly, white beard and even a twinkle in his eye. He used to wear a red sweatsuit to Walmart and little kids would come up to him and exclaim, "Santa!" To which Fuzzy would reply, "Shut up, you little bastard." And this compares to our experience with Santa this year.

We took Maddie to see Santa at the Boulevard Mall last weekend. After waiting in line only about 20 minutes, we got to Santa who neither smiled nor spoke. No "Ho, ho, ho!"; no "Merry Christmas;" not even a "hi." he didn't reach out a hand to take Maddie or even look at her. (Now that I think of it, could he have been a mannequin?) and we had to pay $20 for this priveleged -- which came with the souvenir of 2 picture prints and a Shutterfly gift certificate.

Gone are the days of sitting on Santas lap and telling him you've been a good little girl or boy. I felt bad for the family behind us who had three kids, all talking about what they were going to ask Santa for. He probably didn't even ask.

Rob and I decided perhaps we just didn't do our due diligence work. But we've been thinking our options are kind of limited to mall Santas, after all the days of department stores are gone around here. But then ... Hope like the promise of the Christmas Star...

Someone told us that Kelly's Country Store has an awesome Santa. And of course they have chocolate. So hooray, despair not! While there is goodness (and chocolate) in this world, there will be Christmas cheer!!