Geddy and Santa

This is last year's free picture from Wal-Mart. Geddy was not too happy about sitting on some strange old man's lap. He is crying and reaching out for Scott. Even the candy cane would not console him.

I wasn't too sure how he would react this year. He was pretty upset by various costumes at Halloween time so I thought maybe a big guy in a weird suit with lots of facial hair might remind him of that. I think he was better because we have read lots of books about Santa and watched lots of movies. He also has a better idea of the fact that Santa is going to come on Christmas Eve and leave him a present and fill his stocking. He even knows that Santa is going to find him in Calgary. We bought one of those huge stockings from Wal-Mart for all of Santa's goodies. As you can see in the picture below, he had no problems with the visit this year. In fact, his whole face lit up as we approached the Christmas area. He has since asked if he gets to see Santa again. Though that may just be to get another candy cane. Apparently he did not inherit my dislike for them. A few weeks ago we were looking through our boxes of Christmas decorations so I could use some for a display at work. There were some old candy canes in the ornament box that Scott and I have been putting on our tree our entire marriage. When I wasn't looking, Geddy opened one and had it half eaten before I realized what he was doing. I can't imagine it tasted all that good after eleven years!

I had to look through a huge stack of these pictures tonight just to find ours. As I flipped through at least a hundred of them I realized that very few kids actually looked happy to be there. Most of the little kids were crying and screaming or trying to get away. A lot of older kids had an unhappy look like they didn't really want to be there, but mom and dad were making them. Then I found Geddy's! He was in the extremely small percentage of children that were actually looking at the camera with a happy look on their face. Yeah!!!

Just now when I logged onto my blog I saw that my co-worker Sheila had updated her blog. She has some great links to photos of kids and their traumatic experiences sitting on Santa's lap. Apparently someone has collected several into a book - not one I would buy, but it is pretty funny to look at. In some of the pictures I don't blame the kids for being freaked out, some Santas are kind of creepy looking! If you want a good laugh, just click on her link to the right.