Ho, ho, ho!

Tonight we visited Santa, and had a whole lot of time to spend with him!  One great strategy about visiting with Santa is getting there earlier in the season, which is pretty quiet around Santa's chair.  The great thing is this:  no lines, and a really long time spent with Santa.  Madison sat and talked with Santa for about five or six minutes, even dragging Mommy and Daddy over to talk about what we wanted for Christmas as well.  He was a right jolly old elf, and we laughed when we saw him (in spite of ourselves).

It was a really pleasant evening.  We went down to eat at the food court, and even got some ice cream afterwards.  As we were leaving, we passed by Santa once more - he called out to Madison, and the blew kisses to each other.  We did get some portrait pictures taken, which traditionally are sent out to everyone for Christmas.  Mommy and Daddy will send these out with the Christmas cards - and they came out so good, we might actually make them the Christmas cards this year.

We went by the large Christmas tree again on the way out - we just saw it lit up a few days ago, and it was looking very nice.  On the way home, we listened to all kinds of Christmas music from the Disney Princesses, the Country Bears Christmas show, and a recent favorite track:  It's Dug, the dog from the movie "Up," telling his version of "The Night Before Christmas."

SQUIRREL!

We got home late, and pretty much ready for bed.  There was a bit of practice of the piano, which Madison seems to have down very well.  She's got "Morning" figured out, at least the pretty small portion we've been playing over and over again.

It was a nice Christmas feel tonight together as a family.  We read the second to last book in our Winnie the Pooh series, and even another small book that had the words to "Deck the Halls" in it.  Madison went to sleep, quite content.  Her list was amended a bit, but Santa got the final product and was impressed.  He didn't tell her she'd shoot her eyes out, but simply nodded:  yep, it should be a great Christmas.  His elves have been busy already wrapping most of the things on that list, in fact they are pretty happy with their progress.  Really, they are just about four presents shy of completion.

The Christmas movie festival keeps going, as the elves were wrapping while watching "Lemon Drop Kid" and "Christmas with the Kranks."  We were also looking for things to do this Christmas season, and have a few neat options we've never tried before.  It's going to be a great Christmas season!