Holiday Memory Making - By Jessica Watson

We had a completely stereotypical weekend-in-December-with-little-ones and I loved every minute.

Since the kids were micro-preemies, this is the first year we are able to break out of the house and enjoy all of those germ infested activities we have avoided like the plague for the last three years. Now we are free to explore all the holiday hotspots and catch every bug that the kids come within 20 feet of just like the rest of the mommies-with-kids-who-touch-everything world.

Speaking of kids who touch everything, we headed out for our first visit with Santa and, much to the misfortune of every Christmas display in the place, Santa was out feeding his reindeer when we arrived. We had a twenty minute wait filled with holiday cheer, two 3 year olds, one 18 month old, no stroller and 80 million things they just could not manage to keep their hands off of.

“I’ll keep him steady, you remove the horn”

“Let me just see if I can push that nose of yours right into your face. Don’t worry Parker is holding your hand”

That squeeze that they do to their brother, a little bit nice, a little bit not so nice.

For some crazy reason, the on lookers decided to just let us skip right to the front of the line. We headed to our ~~doom~~ visit with the big red guy, who was surprisingly dad-dressed-up-as-Santa looking for the venue we took them too. You would think an all Christmas all the time shop could manage an authentic looking Santa. The moment I saw him coming I knew he would tacky up our pictures.

Parker loving up Santa, Sawyer hanging onto me for dear life to make sure there was no chance I was going to put him on the big guy and McKenna pre-breakdown that left all of the other children after us wondering what exactly was going to happen to them once they got to the front of that line.
Oh and a guy sitting in a big chair not doing a darn Santa-ish thing.

We took the kids and fled, not missing the irony that I could faintly hear Silent Night overhead during the lulls in McKenna’s incessant crying.

Thank God some elf handed us candy canes.

We may not want to touch Santa with a ten foot pole but you can bribe us with candy any day.

“Can you believe they gave us this after that crazy display?”

“It was just to shut us up McKenna, just to shut ~~you~~ us up.”

So we headed out, one Christmas tradition down, and tried to wrestle everyone into the car to the tunes of a you-let-us-skip-nap-to-see-Santa-so-now-you’re-going-to-pay meltdown times two (Sawyer never cries, just relishes in his perfect toddler title).

“Look Mom, almost as tacky as the one inside.”

Before we told them it was time to leave, happily strutting their stuff.

McKenna had already figured out it was time to go and therefore could not be picture.

We wrapped up the weekend by decorating the tree and in the crazy, bulbs breaking every second, teenager complaining that no one was hanging anything high, ten ornaments on one branch, take the Christmas stocking off your foot, DO NOT put that in your mouth flurry of activity, it was as clear as my post bedtime wine glass waiting to be filled, that these are the moments, when Mark and I are sitting in front of a perfectly decorated tree in a silent house, many years from now, I would give anything to do all over again.