Scary Santa

We took Ava to see Santa Claus in his little Santa Hut full of his little Santa Space Heaters in his little Santa Village (we get it... this is where Santa is). When we got there we weren't even sure if the jolly old man was there at the time. It could have been due to the fact that we came in the afternoon or because it was colder than Ava is tall in inches, but Santa's village was deserted. Once we got our free admission ticket with a "68" on it, we promptly made our way to the front of the non-existent line. Can you imagine? We were next! Go figure! Child 67 was probably there a good 16-18 hours ago. I felt a little weird as I knocked on Santa's hut's door. If he knows who's naughty or nice, shouldn't he know that there are two and a half statuesque popsicles slowly entering a deep freeze outside his hut? One of his 5'9" elves came to the rescue and opened the door.

Commence crying in 3..... 2.... 1...., originally uploaded by Ava's Antics.

There he was, in his cherry-red coated splendor, cautiously eyeing Ava as she cautiously eyed him back. Normally, you would think that Ava has never met a stranger, as she happily would let anyone hold her. This man was clearly not your average person though. He wore his glasses on the tip of his nose, wore a suit about three sizes too big, and had a beard that was probably continuous with his chest hair. The rest of us fondly know this man as Santa Claus, but you can imagine how it was intimidating for Ava. We took off her coat, sat her on his knee, and stepped back to shoot a picture. It was a good thing we did this as promptly as we had, because Ava took a look at Kris Kringle and put on the biggest pouty face you ever did see. Santa exclaimed "uh oh" and gave us a look that said "Get your child off of me, but have a Merry Christmas". Safe in our arms, Ava kept her eye on Santa till we left his hut.

Almost there, originally uploaded by Ava's Antics.

Luckily she had stayed still long enough for us to get a good picture. Now we can pretend her Santa incident never happened. We have photographic proof to show they got along fine right? At least that's our story until she's twenty and wonders why she always gets twitchy around Santa Claus.