A Visit With St. Nick

Wading through some of the photos from Breakfast with Santa at Purdue.

I think Santa was a bit surprised when he asked Haylee what she would like for Christmas and she replied "Everything." She should get points for honesty; every other kid there was thinking the same thing. Haylee brought her list down to it's most simple form.

"All I want for Christmas is everything."

There were a few terrified faces in the hundred or so tots we saw hoisted onto Santa's lap. Some of the parents act so surprised when their kid screams like a banshee upon being handed to an unfamiliar face full of polyester whiskers and fake fur. Duh. You spend hours teaching them about "Stranger Danger" and this reaction surprises you why?

Apparently there's a concern about North Pole germs too. Generous amounts of waterless germ killing goo were scrubbed on tots as they toddled away from their Santa encounter. Waterless hand sanitizer didn't exist when my kids were little. We cleaned them up by spitting on a Kleenex and scrubbing until their skin was beet red. It worked by sanding down the topmost layer of skin along with its occupying germs.

Santa himself wore gloves. Probably to hide the youthful twenty-something hands of a Purdue student but, possibly, Santa has his own feelings about contact with several hundred sticky, snotty kids.

For every screamer and germ free bubble kid there were dozens of littles with great trust in their parent's ability to make a judgment call on the Stranger Menace front. Happy tots who joyfully leaned in close for pictures and whispers of their heart's desires.

A couple of kids brought lists. One or two recited lists from memory. You can tell the home school kids when they visit with Santa. They not only have their lists memorized, they know what page number each item is on in the mail order catalog and have calculated the total shipping weight. and the best way for Santa to disburse his load in the sleigh. I think a couple had detailed schematic drawings done in AutoCad.

It was mostly a communal event. Packs of moms who do lunch (they roam in packs, you rarely spot one away from the herd) pulled along three or four kids each. Grandparents tried to corral several kids between them. A few parents ventured in one on one with their kids. Several families took advantage of the university decorating for The Annual Family Photo. You could spot them coming up the hallway--everyone clean and slicked up to a sheen with kids and parents in matching outfits. One family came complete with coordinating velvet Purdue Santa hats. Even with my outstanding organizational skills (read, 'controlling personality' here), I was impressed by any mother who could get a 10 or 12 year old boy to put on that hat and have the result recorded pictorally for posterity.

(I offer yet another heartfelt apology to my girls for those too many years of coordinating smocked dresses and hairbows.)

And the bunch in our crew? Unrestrained chaos. Evan ate the candy on the playhouse sized gingerbread house. Josh mugged a goofy face for the camera every time I pointed it at him. Haylee sat on a gift under the tree and squished it. Andrea looked a six foot tall college kid dressed as an elf up and down and shook her head in disdain while Hannah diverted from the approved list and surprised her dad by asking Santa for a goldfish.

It was wonderful.