Week 39

Dec 2-8

This was the first week of December and it seems like the Christmas season is starting to be in full swing! :) Ed and I have always both agreed that family traditions are imperative to a happy, healthy family. We have been talking about fun family traditions to do when we had kids since we dated so now that it is Jack's first Christmas, it is so neat to finally start some of these. Some traditions we already initiated, like the decoration of the Christmas tree.

It's really fun because we discussed things that each of us had done in our childhood as well as things we had seen others do that we liked. We kind of took all of the ideas and made them our own. I'm sure we will continue to add more traditions as our family grows.

One of the traditions we always discussed was taking the kids to see Santa. Now as you all know this is an age-old tradition that most people probably did as kids. We couldn't wait to see how Jack would react. We have heard stories from our friends with kids that their kids were freaked out, some were just in awe and stared at Santa.

Ed got off work early one day last week so we decided we would take Jack to see Santa Claus. We had already been planning it and the week before even picked out an outfit for him to wear. Part of the tradition of seeing Santa is getting to wear your "Christmas church outfit" for your picture. We want to keep them all and put them in a book one day. So we gave Jack a quick bath and dressed him in comfy clothes for the ride to the mall. When we got there we dressed him in his corduroy pants, plaid button down shirt (red and green of course), and reindeer sweater. We had to stop by a store on the way to get shoes as Jack does not own shoes yet.

Remember that although it is December, it is in the 80's everyday in Florida. So we went in the mall and found Santa. It was perfect because it was a time when they didn't have any kids there. The set-up was very nice and the Santa looked pretty real. There was Santa and two guys helping. They were just hanging out waiting for a kid to come over. We talked about the different packages and found out that if you buy a package you can also take your own pictures. Of course I brought my new camera so I was super-excited about this. We chose the "cheapest" package (cheap being $30) and proceeded to place Jack on Santa's lap.

Ed and I both kept looking at each other waiting for him to start screaming. No such luck. At first he just kept staring at Santa's beard. We were a little nervous about this because Jack loves hats, glasses, anything on someone's face. He likes to take them off. Of course Santa has a hat, glasses, AND a beard so we weren't sure if Jack was going to behave himself. After his initial staring and studying of Santa's face, Jack realized that we were taking pictures of him. He also realized that everyone in the mall was stopping to look at the cute little boy in the reindeer sweater meeting Santa for the first time.

So of course my little show-off decided to wave at everyone in the mall who stopped to look at him. Of course, as you can imagine this just made the crowd even bigger because they thought it was so cute that he was waving. Santa and his helpers were laughing and kept taking pictures because they thought Jack was so hilarious. I think we hung out with Santa for about 20 minutes before another kid finally showed up so we wanted him to take a turn too. Our "official" 1st Christmas picture with Santa Claus is of Jack waving to people. I'll have to scan that one in. In the meantime, here are some of the ones I took.

It was quite a memorable experience taking Jack to see Santa. I can't wait to go every single year and see how things change. I love family traditions! :)

Jack meets Santa