Margo à la Maude

I would have liked to have saved a whole bunch of Christmas stuff and post it all together, but when we got this back from the photomat, I had to make a multi-part Christmas post so that this photo could be published all the earlier.

Margo has been getting into - and learning - the whole Christmas thing. Santa (a.k.a. le Père Noën). The Grinch (a.k.a. "Dat Guy, he says 'Eggo Eggo Eggo'" - the scene where he's in a cave and it echoes). Snowmen (a.k.a. snowmen or falling snow). The Christmas tree ("it's a sapin de Noën"). She loves it all, and there's something new every day, some new rule to the Christmas game that she hasn't learned yet, like how there's not only presents, but stockings, and lights are not just for outside the house, but for the Christmas tree too.

And then we dropped the bomb... we heard that Santa was going to be at the mall, and we thought that we should go to see him. She was pretty excited. And you really got the sense that there were many, many times where she wanted to be naughty throughout the day, but... man... Santa's going to know and call her on it.

Back from daycare and...

...just an aside: our city bus drivers are on strike, so there's a LOT more car traffic on the road, and the getting places takes a lot more time, which means that there's a razor thin margin between leaving home and getting back in time for bed.

Back from daycare and dressed in her dress, we all set out to the mall. Santa had not arrived yet, but we got to stand in line and take in the North Pole set-up. Giant teddy bears and nutcrackers, candy canes, polar bears. Margo was spinning with excitement.

Then Santa arrived and it was all so real! It was happening. You have to understand that we've practiced this at home. We've made a list for Santa (for those who are curious, she asked for princess, (s)piders, crabe et homard (crab and lobster, and to be able to open Maude's gifts. I'm not making this up.) I even gained weight to better role play the Santa part for practice.

Her turn was coming soon, and she was jumping up and down.

Her turn came, the elf asked her what her name was, and she was invited to come see Santa.




And then it hit her.




Santa is all fine and well when you're writing letters to him, and when he comes after your asleep on Christmas, but right here, right now, in this mall, Santa was some guy that she didn't know and... she got really shy.

Her pace went from a canter to a crawl. With a few steps to go, Minou came up to her face to hide behind. She got up, and Santa was very sweet, and knew her name, but that made her even shier. To take the photo, Santa had to gently hold her hands from bringing Minou back up to her face to hide behind.



But after the photo, she came back, and asked Santa for (s)piders. This was the first time that Santa had been asked for spiders, but he was okay with it. Classy guy, that Kris. Then he asked her if she wanted anything else, like a dolly.

She asked for "more (s)piders."

- Michel

Labels: Christmas 2008, events

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 12:12 a.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.