The Trama

Last weekend, Mom and I took Em to the local boutique grocery, farm stand, garden center... to see Santa. They do free digital pictures every year and don't copy right them so you can copy them as many times as you like. Plus Mom and I always shop a bit there. They have a great Kitchen center and it's kinda like a gift store. So, Em decided that this year she was going to be scared of Santa again. She shook like a leaf during the picture.
Well, for my cousins, who read this blog, do you remember going to see Santa with Nana and Grandfather almost every year for breakfast? It was either Wards or Britts. Mom and I were in Applebees a few weeks ago and they had a flyer that they were hosting a Santa breakfast for the Make a Wish. Since Brian's cousin's son is 5 and suffering from Lukemia, we are very into children's cancer things and Mom and both thought that is was a tradition that her parents had started and we would like to continue.
Yesterday, Saturday, Mom and Emily hosted a Christmas party that they had done for about 3 years now. Mom has this group of friends who all have grandchildren and they like to have Grandma and Granddaughter events. This party is one of them.
Just down the road is this farm. Every Halloween they host the Haunted Hayride. It was voted most extreme hayride by the travel channel. Headless Horseman. It's really cool. Well, they decided they would capitalize on the season and opened a winter version. Frosty Fest. Em wanted nothing to do with Santa last night.
This morning, Mom and Dad took Em to the breakfast. Pancakes and Bacon and Em wouldn't go near Santa.
In the past, Em has been so freaked by Santa, that I have to send him an e-mail to tell him to leave the gifts in the garage, so that she would feel better. She was scared of him coming into the house. She's starting with that again.
We celebrate St. Nicholas Day in our house. St Nicholas comes on the the night of the 5th of December. That's where the tradition of stockings came from. But in our house, St. Nick takes your old, out grown slippers and replaces them with new ones and some treats inside. She was so freaked this year, I wasn't sure she was going to put her slippers under the tree in her room. But she did.
I can almost see her trying to muscle her way past her fears in order to be a big girl. But she still wants to be a baby.
When I asked her how her breakfast was this morning or how Frosty Fest was, she tells me that she doesn't want to talk about it.
Think about it though. A strange man, fat, bearded and living in a remote location of the world, with at least 8 raindeer, a wife, no children, knows if you've been good or bad, brings you gifts for no reason other than he wants too, breaks into your house every year, gives you candy in the mall or the back of the fire truck, employs thousands of short freaky characters and only works one day a year.
Isn't this the person we tell them all year to stay away from? But all will be forgiven when she opens her new Hannah Montana bed room set.