First Visit to Santa

Let’s start with my excuses for not posting anything in almost a month. I’ve been really busy in work. I had a dose of food poisoning. I’ve been snowed in. I had writers block. Oh yeah, and the dog ate my homework. Choose your favourite and let’s move on.

I actually feel really bad because they have been exceptionally entertaining of late and I have, on average, one moment a day when I think “Ha ha, I must write a post about that.” We had about twelve of those moments last Saturday so I will do my best to recount them.

We had arranged to meet Uncle Cheddar Terry and his wife Kitty Kat in the city centre to bring the boys for their first visit to Santa. We were due to meet them at 2.30 and wanted the boys to have finished their nap so we made sure to fill their morning with activity so they would fall asleep earlier than normal.

Their curls were getting out of control so first stop was the barbers. Nana had been trimming their locks thus far so this was another big first. The local barber shop is a wondrous place and I’m not talking about the boys being impressed. I spent most of the time looking at the photos and posters that covered every vertical surface, the model planes hanging from the ceiling and the various parts of skateboards, boogie boards and canoe kit that are tucked under the benches. When their turn came up, the barber selected a seemingly discarded skateboard carcass and put it across the arms of the barbers chair. Fat Chops wanted no part of it, stiffened his body and refused to sit down. There was a little bit a scene but Monkey Boy was far more pliable [once Hannah waved a lollipop under his nose]. Once Fat Chops saw his brother survive the chair he was happy to jump up and spend a few minutes sucking an increasingly hairy lollipop of his own.

They’ve had a few haircuts but I still haven’t adapted to seeing them age with each snip of the scissors. We walked into the barbers with a pair of toddlers and walked out with two handsome young men.

They were looking good and it was time to go across the road to the toddlers disco to see how the girls liked it. The toddlers disco is a great idea. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of renting the scout hall, charging a small fee for each child and teaching them dance moves to Hi-5 songs. Monkey Boy took a notion that everyone had made the journey just to see him. He went around everyone in the room and greeted them individually. If anyone didn’t respond for any reason he would just stand and smile at them, repeating “HELLO!!” louder and louder until they said “hello” back. He then proceeded to park himself in the middle of the dance floor where he was best positioned to ignore any of the instructions and dance as he saw fit. Fat Chops was considerably more demure. He refused to take off his shoes [apparently there is no minimum age for a shoe fetish] and placed himself at the back of the dancefloor. He followed instructions much better but got carried away with the spins a few times and I had to catch him once or twice.

Then home for a quick nap before the main event. In the end, it wasn’t that quick a nap. We left ourselves enough time to make the journey into town but somehow overlooked the fact that it was the second last Saturday before Christmas. Needless to say there was a little bit of traffic but on the plus side it meant that the boys got some more sleep in the car and arrived refreshed and ready to cause havoc. On the negative side it meant that Uncle Cheddar Terry and his wife got to hang around outside a children’s party with no children. Not at all creepy!!

The Christmas Party was in the headquarters of one of the country’s major banks but once you walk past the branding at the front door you would never know. Their sports and social club do a spectacular job of transforming the building into Santa’s grotto. The restaurant is cleared out to make an area for a children’s entertainer to perform and around the outsides there is a buffet, face painters, clowns manipulating balloons and people dressed up as animals.

We filled them with crisps and sweets while they got used to their new surroundings and waited for the sugar buzz to kick in. The first thing that caught their eye was a man in a dog suit that was dancing and shaking hands with the kids. The poor guy must have thought that we had quintuplets instead of twins because every time he turned around there was one of our sons facing him with hand extended. That was bad enough until they started hugging his legs like he was a long lost friend. I thought they were going to take him down and they might well have succeeded if he had tried to walk anywhere. He finally managed to escape and went to dance on the stage but it was short lived before two shakes of his tail he had Fat Chops and Monkey Boy hanging out of either arm. They were besotted.

After a while we managed to distract them with balloon swords. From cuddly animal lovers they instantly transformed into scowling fighting machines and started to battle. Their child minder must show them old Errol Flynn swashbuckling movies during the day because they certainly looked the part. They worked their way through the room stabbing, parrying and riposting for all they were worth until finally, Monkey Boy “died” dramatically in the middle of the room. He remained “dead” there for a couple of minutes, blissfully ignorant that he only barely avoided being stepped on several times.

Finally, after a chaotic hour, we queued up to see the big man in red. There was more duelling while we queued and Monkey Boy nearly disappeared after the dog [poor guy was a bank employee who thought it would be good laugh to help out at the Christmas party. He spent an exhausting couple of hours sweating profusely in a dog costume with the younger kids shaking his hand or dancing with him and the older kids beating him with balloons. I would be surprised if he signed up for next year.]

To reach Santa, you had to climb through a fireplace and up the chimney. Really. They covered all the lifts with a fireplace and you have to crawl in [adults too] where an elf brings you up to the grotto. He was still very cheerful despite us being one of the last of over 500 children to attend the party. His good mood was even more impressive because the grotto was quite small and Fat Chops had been working on his own little “present” while we were waiting. Eyes watering, he went through the routine of asking them what they wanted for Christmas [they ignored him] and if they had been good boys [ignored him and pulled at the decorations]. Then we hauled them up onto his knee for the picture [he did flinch at the smell this time] and the boys put on their best cheesy grins. Monkey Boy still had a mouthful of sweets which he cheerfully displayed for posterity!