Santa and Hollister Co.

D took the day off on Monday to finish his Christmas shopping. We decided to meet at the mall to take N to see Santa. After we saw Santa N and I did a little shopping and D went on his way to finish his errands. I wasn't sure how N was going to react to Santa. We walked by Santa a few days ago and watched him interact with the kids. We looked at the pretty artificial scenery surrounding Santa and talked about that, but I didn't take him to sit on Santa's lap because D wanted to be there for that. We returned to the mall on Monday with D to see Santa. N rode the train while I waited in line behind a school group. Luckily the school group took one group photo so the wait wasn't too long. When it was N's turn D took him up to Santa to talk to him. N wasn't scared, but he wasn't too impressed. He didn't want to sit on his lap or talk to him. We thought maybe he was respond differently if I took him to see Santa, so I took a turn...There was no line by this time. Still no interest. N was more intrigued by the train ride across from Santa. N ended up sitting on my lap and I sat in front of Santa for a picture. Then the lady asked what package I wanted... Without asking the prices I chose the sheet with four 3x5's on it. Then she rang me up and told me my bill. Yikes! $25 for four 3x5's. That was much more than I thought it would cost. I guess I was naive about it. But I remember getting my picture with Santa at the mall every few years when I was little. I remember pulling those pictures (which I think we later made into ornaments) out of the Christmas decorations each year and looking at them. I plan on making N's Santa pictures into some sort of ornament or keepsake so we can look at them in the years to come.

As I said above, D went on his way and finished his errands after we saw Santa and N and I shopped a little at the mall. On the way to the "soap store" (as N refers to Bath and Body) we got distracted by the thumping music at Hollister. You have to walk up a couple steps onto what looks like a front porch decorated with two weathered leather chairs and manikins dressed in Hollister clothes to get into the store... Well, this wasn't a porch to my child... This was a stage!! N loves music and dancing.. So, with no shame whatsoever, he busted a move to the music outside Hollister! And another move...and another move. He danced at that store for four songs, so I'm guessing that was a good 15-20 minutes. He was so into it. He played the air guitar, stomped his feet and swung his arms through the air. If you are in the same room (or car) with N when he is doing his dancing he tells you what imaginary instrument to play. I usually have to play the drums and D usually plays the tuba. I had my camera with me (thinking I was going to get pictures with Santa), so I thought "What the heck, N appears to have more interest in Hollister than he has in Santa, so I'll take some pictures!" Several customers come in and out of the store in the amount of time we were there. They laughed on their way in... and laughed ever harder on their way out at that fact that we were still there. I finally had to tell N it was time to go and we had to tell Hollister bye bye. He was a good boy and said bye bye to the store and cooperated very well.... Until we got to Abercrombie... Which also has loud, thumping music. So he had to dance at Abercrombie, too. The sales associates (mostly girls) loved the entertainment. The cutest part about it is that he was all dressed up in his argyle sweater and tan slacks because we were there to see Santa. Anyway. Maybe you had to be there to find this humorous, but look at the pictures below. If you scroll through them kind of quickly it might remind you of one of those flip books that they used to do cartoons on.

An early Christmas

So last night my phone kept ringing and ringing. Someone would call, I would answer and say hello several times, then the person would hang up. I was a little freaked out by it the first few times, but I could hear children in the background the next few calls. I knew it couldn't be some sort of weirdo pranking us if I could hear children playing happily in the background. The last call I heard my neighbor's voice in the phone and wondered if her youngest child had pressed a preset button to call our house and I laughed about it.. I heard my neighbor say to her husband, " He likes the chocolate ones with the icing on top." When I heard her voice I knew I had to call her back and give her a hard time... Anyway. She was calling me to tell me that they had received a package with our address on it on their front porch and wanted to know if she could bring it over. She asked me if I was expecting a package from Amazon and I said yes, I was waiting for several things in the mail and she said "Oh, so you know about the mixer then?? Good I didn't want to ruin......." and that's all I heard her say before I started jumping up and down and clapping. She said " What?!?! You didn't know about the mixer?? Is this a gift for you??" She said. "It must be.. My dad must have bought it.." I then went into the explanation that my Dad ordered me a Christmas gift and accidentally had it sent to my address instead of his address... As I was telling my neighbor this I was thinking that a mixer was an awfully generous gift for my Dad to buy me! I then started to tell my husband about the situation while still on the phone with my neighbor and my husband rolled his eyes and made a funny face indicating that he was the one who had bought the mixer...My neighbor felt terrible.. She was sorry she'd ruined the surprise and apologized many times. She then sent her husband over to our house to deliver the package. Much to our surprise the mixer was not packaged in any sort of extra box to cover the contents of the package so even if the mail man had delivered the package to the correct home the surprise would have been spoiled. As my husband and I talked about it more I realized that it would have been a real bummer if someone had seen the Kitchenaid picture on the front of the box and stolen it right off the front porch!! (Note to self...make sure Amazon packages items in an extra box to hide contents of box..)

Anyway. My husband let me have the mixer last night because he could see how excited I was and because he knows I will get a lot of use out of it throughout the holidays. I am ecstatic about it! I know this is dorky, but I have been dreaming of getting a red Kitchenaid mixer for a looooong time, but never wanted to buy one because they are so pricey... Apparently I have done more than dream about it. I guess I've been talking about it so much that D finally just went ahead and bought me one. He did tell me that I would be proud of his shopping, though. He said he found it on sale and there is a rebate on it right now so he got a good deal. I must be rubbing off on him. :)