Breakfast with Santa December 10th

My Great-Grandfather was one of a group of people that formed a fraternal Polish life insurance company a century ago; my Grandmother was Women's President of the company until her death in 1981.

Every year that company hosts a breakfast with Santa, with each child getting a very nice, brand name gift at the end of the meal. I've been going since I was a wee lad - probably since I was born - and my kids go every year.

[For a few years they dumped the breakfast format and went with pizza, then burgers. Thankfully, they went back to pancakes this year]

Best. Breakfast Sausage. Ever.

We brought YaYa's friend (and daughter of Lisa's friend) along too.

Everything went suprisingly smooth, with no hiccups at all to report.

YaYa is in that 'either act really goofy or smile stiffly and artificially' stage, but she's still cute:

When YaYa was three we had her wrap up her di-di's and give them to Santa at Mayfair Mall, with a request to give them to babies who needed them. Well, we didn't do that, not with Park still a youngin', but we did have her promise Santa to give up the pacifier as she is a 'big girl'.

As of this writing, only a few hours shy of a week later, she is still di-di free.

Parker wasn't scared at all - he just wasn't keen on sitting still. He would rather just steal a candy cane and move on :)

As for the gifts, Parker first got a noisemaking hammer, but we asked for something else, as he already owned one. The lady acted like the request was a tad rude, but the boy doesn't have all that many toys - if he did we'd have just said thanks and moved on. The second time around he got a toy cell phone.

Lu got the best gift, a Little Mermaid toyCD walkman that plays miniature 'CD's' with Disny music.

YaYa's gift was a bit of a miss. It was a craft kit that converts a picture to a jigsaw puzzle. Aside from the fact that the craft was messy, largely ineffective, and quickly used up the supplies that came with it, I was impressed that she handled seeing Lu's gift like a champ, without even a whimper.

Oh, and their friend? Her Dad bought her a Barbie, which we smuggled in to Santa's helpers :)