Tanner: "That's it, Sydney! I'm sayin a prayer to Jesus to tell Santa not to bring you any presents!"
Bailey: "Wouldn't it be fun to go visit Santa? I know: we could bring our swimming suits and go swimming with him!!!"
Mom: "Uh... it's freezing cold at the North Pole. I don't think we'd want to swim there."
Bailey: "But yes we would. Santa has a HUGE swimming pool there at the North Pool. Dats why it's called the North Pool. We can totally go swimming there!"
Tanner: "I just love the racecar set Santa broughted to me! But I wish I had another racecar, too... Oh, wait! I need to be thankful, don't I? We need to be thankful for what we get from Santa, and we need to be thankful for what we get from Jesus, and we need to be thankful for what we get from garage sales... and Walmart, too." (???)
Bailey has never been a big fan of Santa. As a toddler, she'd shriek "No Santa! No Santa!" whenever the topic came up. Last year, she would shudder and shake if we approached him at the mall or at a Christmas party, and she spoke of him with fear for months to follow: "No more Santa, right? Santa is all gone, right?" But she steeled herself this year to be brave so that she could at least tell Santa what she wanted. I would overhear her giving herself pep talks. (eg- "Santa isn't scary and I won't cry when I see him cuz I will be very, very brave.") When we saw him at our ward Christmas party, she timidly walked up to him, shaking, and allowed herself to be next to him.... so long as Quinn was holding her. Progress! She told him what she wanted, and then she turned to me and yelled, "Hey! Santa's not so bad after all!!!" (I don't know... she still looks pretty leary to me.)
Carter was happy to hang out with Santa's cute elves...
And Taylor told Santa she wanted a driver's license... (SO SO scary!)