Dinner with Santa

I would love to show you pictures of our kids from dinner with Santa, but they're on Karen's camera.  I could show you pictures of Colleen's kids, except I don't have a card reader for our camera, and the cable is at the office...  So you're just going to have to imagine it.

Colleen's girls were all wearing emerald green dresses with white fur trim.  They looked like the Something Sisters from the 1930s, but I can't remember the name of the group.  Who knows what I mean?

I do have a picture of us from before we left.

I need to figure out a way to get those bows to stay in their hair for the party at Mom's on Wednesday.

There were 10 families in our group!  Of course, we couldn't all sit at one enormous table, so we were at several enormous tables.  I think we knew around 50 of the people there, plus 4 more who were at the second seating that we didn't get to see ( :( ).  It was SO MUCH FUN to see the kids with their little buddies, dancing and talking and eating and being merry!

It went the way it goes every year - sit with Santa for a picture, do a craft, eat a buffet-style supper, talk, sing carols, dance, do a crazy conga thing around the restaurant to "Feliz Navidad."  It was so fun to share a favorite tradition with so many of our friends.

Monica took this picture of Jack as she was leaving:

She said he looks like a toy in a shop window.  I love it that he brought red and green trains to match the Christmas theme!  And wasn't it good planning that the carpet and the paint match the whole Christmas red-and-green too?

When I asked the kids what they liked best about the Santa dinner this year, Claire said, "Everything!" and she went on to say something profound along the lines of, "That's what Christmas is!  It's being with your family!"

Our friends are family to her, and to me.  Love that.

Previous Santa Dinner posts can be found here, here, here, here, and there.