Dear Santa

Well, the big man is in town, so we took Robert to the mall for the annual visit with Santa!

(No, that's not Bobo, that's Santa's bear, who happens to be Bobo's cousin.)

Before we left, Emily helped Robert write his letter to Santa:

Dear Santa,
I am a good boy. Robert want a kitchen, computer, and robots. And a gas pump. Mommy and Daddy are good. Please Mommy yarn, Daddy Metsies. Baby Claire too little. Peanut please five bones please. And five balls. Santa, I love you.

(You will note that it may be in mommy's handwriting, but it's clearly Robert's voice.)

We got there before Santa arrived, and took a few minutes to goof around:

But as soon as Robert saw Santa, he was all business!

Emily had to give one of the elves a stern talking-to when he tried to stop her from taking personal photos. We got this nice one in addition to the "official" one above:

After the photo op, Robert gave Santa his note...

...and Santa helped him put it in the mailbox for delivery to the North Pole.

Another year, another holiday season is upon us!

"And He Said, Santa!"

After living on Long Island as long as we have, we've realized a few things. One of those things we've realized is that if you can take advantage of doing things when nobody else has thought of it yet, you can save yourself a lot of time and aggravation. So we decided it was time to get an early word in with the Big Guy. Robert -- and Bobo, once again in matching hats -- weren't too sure at first:

But Smith Haven Mall was all decked out, pending the arrival of the fat man in the red suit!


Quickly, Robert realized something was up.


Robert even wanted to share his excitement with Bobo:


Suddenly, the Big Man arrived:

Robert went over to check it out.

We decided to let another family go first, since Robert quickly became unsure of himself. We watched the other kids speak with Santa:

Then it was our turn. Mom explained to Robert who Santa was, and Robert gave him a high-five:


As hard as we tried, Robert refused to smile. Simply refused.

Although he was unimpressed by his experience with Santa, Mom did explain Robert's Christmas list, and that he had, in fact, been a very good boy. Santa promised he'd do what he could.

On the way out, Robert was more impressed with some fictional characters.