A visit to Santa

Since Santa did not come to our Ward Christmas Party this year, we needed to go see him! We heard that Santa went to Merrifield Garden Center, so we went to see him there.

However, were not given ample instructions about visiting the North Pole. Seriously, this Santa is big time!! When we walked in, we saw a relatively short line, not realizing that it snaked around and was much longer. We stood there for a while, then realized what we were in for. We heard the ladies behind us talking about this Santa. Apparently he has been coming to this Portable North Pole for over 30 years. One of the moms who was bringing her children went there as a child.

So thus began the wait. And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Oh, let's see, let's just wait some more. Do you get it, we waited a long time!!!

The good thing is that the place was really cool. There were little booths that the kids sat in. There was a huge advent calendar on the wall that was amazing. It was the letters of the alphabet and it was religious in nature!! Apparently Santa is quite religious, which I'll get to later.


Here are the children sitting in one of the little booths. There was a family in front of us with a cute little girl who followed the kids around. At one point they gave up and left, which was good news to us since it made our wait a bit less. As I mentioned, Santa is quite religious. He makes a really cool advent calendar, and I heard it changes each year. This year it was an alphabet theme with something spiritual mentioned for each day. You may not be able to see it clearly, but it was really cool. I was excited when they gave us a copy of it when we went home.



Here are a few of the ones I really liked.
This was on the wall when you first entered in. I really liked it..



On the ceiling were little clouds with "Merry Christmas" spelled out in lots of different languages. It was really neat. There were lots of displays and a big nativity.

The boys loved the nativity, but they kept moving it around. Landon would cover the baby Jesus up with straw. Guess he felt he wasn't warm enough.

When we were about to be in the room with Santa, he needed a break and came out into the waiting area to sing some Christmas Carols.

Have you ever seen Santa kneel down at a nativity and worship Baby Jesus?

Santa adores baby Jesus
Here's the sleigh Santa sits in.

After Santa's singing break, he had to give us a lesson in how to become an elf. Cute, but we get the show on the road!!

So here's the scoop on Santa. Every child must fill out a paper with their list. They have to present it to Santa when they walk up. (and don't make the mistake of letting they youngest go first because she will cry and Santa will chastise you for not letting the oldest go first because "that is the way it goes.") Oops.

So each child stands facing Santa. He says their name, age and grade. He makes a little small talk then has them sit on his lap. They go through the list and he glances at mom or dad for each item. According to a signal he gets, he would say "yes, I can bring you that" or "ah, no, I have something better for you." He then does more small talk, we take pictures and he give each child a set of specific instructions and puts a ribbon around their head and says "place this ribbon high on the tree for my eyes to see."

Here are each of the kids instructions:

Jordan: put a plate of chocolate chip cookies inside the shirt she is wearing under the tree for Mr. Clause and in the morning there will be something beautiful for her to wear.

Spencer: put a potatoe inside the shirt he is wearing for the reindeer. In the morning, there will be something special inside the shirt.

Landon: put 3 cookies on a plate, with 2 carrots and a small glass of milk. In the morning there will be something special for him.

If I had sat in his sleigh, I would have had instructions, as well. It was funny to listen to him talk to the teenagers and moms who went before us.

Here are each of the kids with Santa



And a nice shot, of course:)



And the 3 kiddos with their ribbons.
Thanks Santa for the great visit. I do believe!!