Santa Train

I grew up with some pretty awesome experiences with Santa, so I've been chomping at the bit to introduce Isaac to the man in red. There is some kind of parenting rite of passage when it comes to Santa--how to introduce the concept, the actual person, have fun with it and still keep the focus on Christ. Last year Santa mailed a book about Jesus's birthday to Gramma's house so we could read it together on Christmas morning. We know how much Santa loves Jesus, so it was fun to have that experience.  But we didn't actually get to SEE Santa. Conveniently, the Santa Train was in our neck of the woods this weekend, so we hopped on board, sang some carols, ate some cookies, and stood in line...a lot.  For some reason Isaac was...how shall we say...in a bit of a mood today (ahem), so it took some extra work to get him to smile for just about anything. He tolerated Santa. He didn't give him any gruff, but also didn't give him much to work with. Thankfully, Santa is a patient man and has seen his fair share of moody four year-olds. Especially, ones who decide to be in a perfectly happy state as soon as we get back in the car to drive home. (What the heck?)  In the end, it was this momma who was more excited about the Santa Train than the little human, but we tried...and got the photo for the record books.   

Singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

Munching on cookies & coco in the snack car.
Fast forward 30 seconds and all three of our drinks were on the ground and four strangers were on their knees helping us mop the train floor. God bless them all.

For a first photo with Santa, I suppose this isn't so bad.
Clearly he was merely tolerating the experience. :)

Thank you, Santa.
  We'll see (evidence of) you soon!