Why is Santa so scary?

Today we went to see Santa.  Jack has wavered back and forth all season about sitting in Santa's lap.  Usually he says no, but occasionally he says that he will sit in Santa's lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas.  Today at lunch he was looking at a Thomas catalog and said (with great enthusiasm), "I want Thomas for Christmas.  I sit in Santa's lap!"  I asked if he wanted to see Santa today and he said yes.  I thought he might actually do it since it was his idea, so we ran upstairs, threw on some clothes and off we went to see Santa.

Hmm . . . not sure why I expected it to be that different from last year.  It wasn't.  He didn't want to have anything to do with Santa and when we finally coaxed him closer, Jack refused to look at him.  Anna was fine, but eventually got tired of sitting on some strange man's lap and started to cry.  That's when they finally snapped the pictures!

This is one Marshall took while we were trying to get settled.  I wanted him to take more but you're not supposed to take any and he's not really a rule breaker!  The goal was for me to get them comfortable and eventually slide out of the picture, but that never really happened!

After the Santa drama, we had to find a bench so Marshall could put Anna's shoes back on (since they went flying off at some point during her time with Santa).

Here's the official picture.

I love it!  It just says so much about what was really going on!

When we got home I tried to take some pictures of the kids in front of the tree, but Jack refused to sit in the chair with Anna . . .

And then she decided to walk away from her pose in order to go play!

Oh, on the way home, Jack says to me, "I not sit in Santa's lap.  I not want Thomas."  I hope he remembers that on Christmas morning!!