It was a dark and stormy night…

Oh, wait, no it wasn’t. It was actually quite pleasant, in the mid fifties, no rain, little wind. And we went to see Santa.

First of all, this was at the city park where all the city christmas happenings happen. Yeah, we just do it all (officially) in one place. There was hot chocolate. Cookies. Carolers. Lights galore. And the highlight? Getting to sit on Santa’s lap.

We went to the building that in Ordinary Times holds the Parks and Rec offices. Tonite, it was Santa’s Wonderland. You walk around the back of the building to stand in line. And we thought “there aren’t that many people in line.”

Over an hour later, we actually crossed the threshhold into the back door of Santa’s Wonderland. This hour was spent watching one boy (not old enough to call him a man) run all of our toddlers ragged with endless games of “red light/green light” “mother may I” “freeze tag” and others. He was truly up for sainthood.

After standing inside the hallway for another fifteen minutes, a mom commented that “after all this time we’re like family.” It truly felt that way. Just by being together we had learned many kids names and who belonged to whom (it’s hard to tell, sometimes, heh)

After a bit my son conspired with some other kids that were about his age. They snuck up the hallway, past strollers and tired parents, along the wall, almost out of sight. I swear he is going to be Special Forces someday. Anyway, they made it all the way around to Santa’s Workshop – something we hoped actually exists, the same way you might get in your car and drive fifteen minutes to see if the “Hot Donuts Now” sign is lit at Krispy Kreme. Only at this point it had been an hour and a half.

They came running back (Special Forces would have taken off points for giving away the position) and hollering “You won’t believe what Santa did!!”

“What?”

“He killed a reindeer.”

“No way, Santa wouldn’t do that.” We were puzzled.

“Yes he did,” he insisted. “He’s up on the wall. And he hung elves from his antlers!”

Okay, we explained, that’s not really a reindeer. “Maybe he was a mean one” my son decided. Case closed.

Anyway, ten minutes later, we made it to Santa his ownself. The people in front of us in line didn’t have a camera (last time they saw Santa they weren’t allowed to take their own pictures, tonite it was OK) so we snapped pics of their kids and swapped e-mail addresses. And we managed to actually sit with Santa, and kinda liked it. We told him what we wanted, and he gave us candy.

And I’m gonna remember the reindeer for a long time.