Santa Sightings

Every morning we visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website (www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html) to read updates from the North Pole regarding ongoing holiday preparations.  The NORAD site is the source of all important Santa-related information.  In fact, it announces breaking news before it even hits the mainstream media.  For example, yesterday we learned that "Santa's Chief Elf, Kerstmis Fatato, informed NORAD that 99.23% of toy production has been completed.  In the next 24 hours, all toys will be finished, wrapped, sorted, and loaded into Santa's sleigh for distribution on Christmas Eve.  To accommodate last-minute requests, elves will continue to work right up until the reindeer lift Santa and his sleigh into the night sky."  And, late last week we learned that Vixen suffered an injury to her magical levitation system.  Luckily, the lead elf trainer was able to restore her flying capabilities and expects her to be fully recovered in time for this year's Christmas Eve flight.  Today, NORAD confirmed that the special navigation panel aboard Santa’s sleigh is functioning as planned.  (Sounds like final preparations are being made....sure wish Mom and Dad were as prepared and organized as Santa...with 4 days until Christmas, our progress is far from that described by Chief Elf Kerstmis...)

NORAD also offers a Kids Countdown link that allows children to explore Santa's village to see which shop is the busiest on a particular day.  For those of you unfamiliar with Santa's village, examples of shops include, Santa Packaging Inc, Toy Land, Cookie Shack, Prancer's Puzzle Production, Mixie Pixie Telegram Service, and Santa's Bureau of Investigations (SBI) which maintains the Naughty and Nice Lists.  When you scroll your cursor over each shop, there is a candy cane thermometer that gauges each location's activity level.  Then, when you click on the busiest shop, it directs you to a fun computer game that relates to each location's function.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, kids can track Santa's flight using Google Earth or the NORAD website.  According to the site, NORAD officials track Santa using Santa Cams, which are "ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras pre-positioned at many locations around the world only on December 24th. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world."

Here are pictures of the boys (along with "Blue Puppy" disguised as a reindeer) watching the video clip of Santa's 2009 Christmas Eve flight, reading updates from the North Pole, and discovering which village shop is the busiest.

In other Santa sighting news, several nights ago we took the boys to the mall to see Santa.  Although the timing wasn't ideal (we went in the early evening just after dinner), we hoped that their excitement would make up for their sleepiness.  Although we worried about how Gavin would respond to Santa given his stranger/separation anxiety, we hoped that Ryan's presence would have a calming effect and would give him the courage he needed.  As you can see from the pictures below, the experience did not exactly go as planned...

First, as they waited in line, the boys tried to catch a glimpse of Santa.  However, Gavin ended up falling face first in the poinsettia display.  

Finally, it was the boys' turn to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas.  With two failed/abandoned attempts the week before, we were hopeful that this visit to Santa would be successful...

 

In Gavin's defense, it's probably a little scary to be plopped in a stranger's lap, especially one with a scraggly beard and a red suit trimmed in white fur (not to mention the stale breath, sickly pallor, and awkward conversation).  Once Gavin was safely in Mommy's arms, he peered curiously over my shoulder to see what Santa and Ryan were doing and did accept the gift that Santa offered at the end of the visit (but from arm's reach since he refused to get any closer!).