Santa Visit...

In November, I saw a Facebook post from our local fire department, announcing the lottery to enter for a chance to have Santa come visit your house in a firetruck.  I thought, why not?  Max might get a kick out of that, and for sure my four year old niece will like it.

A couple of weeks later, we found out that Max was way more into Santa than we could have imagined.  And for the first time really.  Max has only been to Santa two times in his nine years.  The first time, he was just a couple of months old.


The second time, he was 3 years old, and we took him to the Santa house my parents took us to as kids.


Max hasn't been back to Santa since, mostly because he can't be in crowds during the respiratory season, but also because he really hasn't shown any interest in Santa.

Fast forward to this year.  I needed to pick something up at the mall, so we zipped in a week before Thanksgiving.  Max stays in the more open areas so he's not in the crowds.  I went into the store, and Steve and Max walked around.  When they got to the Santa Village, Max's face lit up!  He really wanted to go see Santa, but a week before Thanksgiving, it already was crawling with kids, and not something that Max could do safely with all the germs going around right now.   We told him it wasn't Christmas-time yet, and we'll have to come back to see Santa.

We were thinking we'll have to come at a time when the mall may not be too busy with kids.  Good thing Max likes to stay up until late, I thought.  We'll go when all the other kids are in bed!  Then, on Thanksgiving day, we got the call that Max was chosen to get a special visit from Santa Claus at his house.

That visit was set for tonight!

We made Santa chocolate chip cookies!  (Which we completely forgot to give to him!!)


Max was very excited to see Santa.  Can't you tell?


The truth is, Max had a major allergy attack last night due to our brilliant idea of cutting the dog's beef bone in half - which threw bone dust in the air - which Max inhaled.  Bones = gelatin, which is flagged as an anaphylaxic reaction in all of Max's medical charts....so the thing Max is most allergic to, the reason we have epi-pens with us at all times...was flying around the air.  We slammed him with benadryl and he calmed enough to not need the epi-pen.  But just!

All that to say, Max was super tired all day!  He made Santa a little card to go with the cookies.  And when cousin Addie got here, she made a picture for Santa too.  Although, she didn't know that Santa was coming to town tonight.


We were given a time from 5:00pm - 8:00pm, so we ate quickly and waited for the fun to come!!
I don't know who heard the sirens, or saw the lights, but I got Addie to come with me to answer the door.  When we got there, she was a little shy of it all...but then she saw who was coming up the stairs.


It was a flurry of iPhone photos and adults wrangling kids and dogs, and neighbors coming out to see what on earth was going on!  And some hello hugs from Santa!



I let our neighbor inside, and by the time I got inside and the camera in hand, Addie was on Santa's lap for her visit!!!!


Santa's helper gave Addie her present from Santa...


Then, Santa wanted Max on his lap.  That's the benefit of Santa also being a fireman...he was plenty strong to hold onto our very excited boy!




Max was so excited!!  SAAAAANTAAA!


We got a photo with all the kids, and Santa had to go see the other kids on his list.


Thank you Uncle Dan for getting a video in all the excitement! (And thankfully Max did not get a good grab on Santa's beard, because he was loving that thing!)

It was time for Santa to fly away to his next house.

Bye-bye Santa!

Hooray for a visit from Santa in the big weewoo! (Max's sound for a fire-truck)

As soon as they pulled off, we saw all of our neighbors' kids with their little faces to the windows waving to Santa too!  

A great big THANK YOU to the Westminster Fire Dept.  for bringing some Christmas cheer to our boy, and for making our whole house a happy place tonight!