A visit with Santa!

I've always heard the third time is a charm...I tried taking Samuel to see Santa when he was about a month old... it ended in screaming. I tried taking Samuel last year to see Santa when he was a year old...it ended in screaming. But the third time is a charm! By no means did the picture turn out great, in fact, Samuel wouldn't even sit on Santa's lap. But we did it! We got a picture of both Samuel and Santa in the same general area, with no tears!

We attended the town of Barton's annual tree lighting ceremony!  First, who knew that Barton had a ceremony???  I went expecting very little...and came out actually impressed!

Here we are getting ready to head out to the tree lighting!  I was so happy we could finally use Samuel's Christmas shirt and his super cute Dino boots!

The Barton Tree Lighting was very simple!  But it was very nice!  When we arrived, a line had started forming around the tree.  There were Christmas carols playing. Lots of kids!  The mayor welcomed everyone, and introduced the town council who wished us a Merry Christmas!  Then a choir sang some Christmas music, but unfortunately not enough people showed up so the poor Mayor chimed in, except he didn't know the words!  It was really cute and got a good little well-meant chuckle from the crowd!

The tree was lit!

Samuel said ooooooooh! And kept wanting to touch the bulbs!

Then we wanted Santa to arrive...so we had to sing Here Comes Santa Clause...at least 15 times.  Unfortunately, he never arrived!!!!!!  So the mayor put the CD back on, as we all waited for the arrival of Santa!!

Here's Eric and Samuel waiting!

But St. Nick didn't let us down!  He arrived in fine style, in a red fire truck with sirens and lights!  He traveled a whole block from the fire station to the town hall!  It was really cute, and Samuel loved it!!!!  Samuel has a fire truck at home, and came home thinking Ho Ho was in his fire truck!!!

We finally made our way to the front of the line to see Santa!  Samuel was more interested in, well anything else!  So a quick snap of the picture with him at least looking forward!  We collected our good bag (filled with candy!) and came home.  There were cookies and hot chocolate afterward, but we decided we had had enough Santa for one evening!

I was so pleased that Samuel didn't cry and actually had fun this year! I hope this is a holiday tradition we can keep up with for him!