Project: Santa Desensitization

This year Natalie and Abby have shown a lot of interest in Christmas - especially Christmas trees and Santa.  They can spot a Santa and tree a mile away - kind of like Elmo and Mouse.  I have taken advantage of this newfound interest to begin Santa Desensitization in hopes of avoiding this:


 





















I would really love to get a great picture this year and more importantly, have the girls enjoy Santa.  Project Santa involves talking about going to see Santa, looking at books about Santa, looking up pictures of happy kids sitting on Santa's lap on the internet, and most recently, seeing Santa in person without the pressure of trying to get a picture.

As you know, we are visiting indefinitely with my mom and mema here in the beautiful mountains of Franklin, NC.  Franklin is the kind of town kids can't wait to get out of and tourists love to visit.  The town is really quite darling and somewhat quaint with a neat little town square with such things as painted trash cans.

 

Also, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the town held a "Cookies with Santa".  It seemed like the perfect opportunity for Project Santa.  I wasn't sure if it would be a sit down at a table thing with Santa (it was really just "have a cookie while you stand in line"), but it sounded good.  We arrived at the Gazebo in the middle of town in time to see Santa wander around a bit before taking his seat.  Natalie and Abby were quite excited.  We had our cookies while waiting in line and took the opportunity to write a letter to Santa telling him that they had been very good little girls.

Natalie and Abby did well until we started to approach Santa.  There wasn't any crying, but there was a lot of clinging.  I think the did great though.  They introduced Santa to Elmo and Mouse and handed him their letters. (They will be getting return letters from Santa soon in the mail.)  They were willing to stand pretty close to Santa as long as they were holding on to Mommy or Daddy.

 

 

We also walked around town a bit and enjoyed the Christmas decorations.  There was a huge live tree decorated and the girls loved it.  Natalie loved the huge red "emlo balls".

Elmo and Mouse also enjoyed the Christmas Tree.

We took a few family photos and one with Grammy.

We also did a little window shopping.

And made sure everyone stayed warm and cozy.

We also had a chance to see the bricks that members of our family donated and dedicated.  The town has a little garden with a brick pathway made of the donated bricks.

Daphne is my grandmother and John, Louree and Joyce are her siblings.  Clayton and Pallie are their parents.  There is another brick we couldn't find for Louree, donated by her children.  Louree passed away quite a while ago.

All in all, it was a great day and I think, a very successful introduction to Santa for Natalie and Santa.  Next step, seeing Santa at the mall.  If all goes well, we should have a picture by Christmas.