Visit with Santa

Is it December already??!!  Not sure how that happened.  Things have been good at the Noel house, just busy as ever with work, Evie and now holiday festivities!  Evie is super excited this year about Christmas, mainly all the lights and fun music, even though she is not too sure exactly what it's all about just yet.  I tried to get her excited about seeing Santa, and she was, until it was actually time to sit in his lap.  Here is the end result:

And this was after several minutes of "warm-up" time, in which I sat next to Santa while holding Evie, and Santa read her stories and sang her songs (turns out Santa has a LOT of patience the earlier in the season you visit him :)).

But, when it came time for Mommy to leave her alone in his lap, she lost it.  I can't say I didn't expect that, and of course we still bought the photos to go right along with last year's tearful picture.

Here is Evie's dramatic reenactment of the way it all played out (this happened Sunday after lunch at Chuy's with our favorite cousin):

In case the sound is too muffled and you can't make it out, we are asking Evie what she did when she saw Santa...  and then we ask her what he gave her (it was a candy cane).  She came up with that reenactment all by herself, by the way, with absolutely no prompting.  She was especially hamming it up in this video, but ever since she met Santa, she's been fake crying whenever their meeting is mentioned.  Not sure where she gets her dramatic side.  :)

Hopefully there won't be any more REAL tears for Santa this year, and maybe she'll finally understand just why he is so awesome after Christmas morning.