Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Tonight Jennifer went out for dinner with her girlfriends. The kids and I decided to make the most of our 3-some quality time and did a bunch of fun things. After we finally got Andy to eat his dinner, we did a scavenger hunt for dessert. I made a bunch of clues on paper and hid them aroound the house. As Katie is now reading, she would struggle through the clues and the two kids ran all over the place until they finally found some lollipops and candy at the end of the trail.

We then did a reindeer craft that we had picked up last week in Palm Springs, and then finally settled into watch "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" on the DVR. You know, the old animated puppet version with Bing Crosby.

The kids are really thinking a lot about Santa right now, and there were lots of questions from the get-go. I found myself really enjoying the show as the kids would ask questions about Santa and the show was answering them as they went along. They have 100% faith in Santa and are ready for him to come visit. Katie was especially curious aobut the naughty and nice part, and kept asking is she had been 'good' this year. You could tell she was worried about some of her less than perfect moments. I told her that Santa is always watching, and that he knows we aren't good all the time, but the more-good we are, the more presents he is allowed to bring us on Christmas.

As I tucked the kids in for bed, I first put down Andy, and then Katie. As I was leaving the room and turning off the lights, she started to get out of bed...

Me: "What are you doing Katie?"

Katie: "I'm going to say a prayer."

(I smiled and nodded, and walked about the door. Of course I couldn't help myself but to linger and eavesdrop a little... her prayer was something like this...)

Katie: "Dear God, thank you for making me happy, and thank you for my friends and my school. I love Andrew. And I love all my family. I will be really good and I will not fight with Andrew. And he will be good too. I promise to be nice and to sing Christmas Carols..."

At this point our noisy heater came-on and I couldn't hear anymore! Realizing that god was probably trying to tell me to stop eavesdropping on a private conversation, I walked off feeling pretty good about life, and thankful for my kids, and for Santa himself.

I am ready for Christmas now, it's gonna be awesome!

Here's the youtube on the show we watched in case your own Chrismas spirit needs a little kindling...