third time's a charm

we weren't sure how christmas would go this year. you see, for the past few months ava has had this great fear of santa. screaming that santa was in her room, or in the dark or anywhere else that might be scary to her. you can imagine the fear she would've had, had we told her that on christmas eve, in the middle of the night, santa was going to creep in the house while she was sleeping...

something had to be done.

so for the past few months we've been prepping her... telling her how nice santa is and that if she's a good little girl he would bring her some presents. we've even gone as far as rehearsing meeting santa and sitting on his lap. we didn't want her to be terrified and traumatized by the jolly guy and we were hoping that this would be the year that we would finally get a non-crying pic of her on his lap.



a couple of weeks ago, at our ward christmas party they arranged for a santa to be there. we built it up and ava was so excited to meet him... practically skipping her way to the room where he was, exclaiming, "santa, santa!". but as soon as the door was opened and she caught sight of him in his intimidating throne of a chair, her mood quickly changed and with a swift turn back to me she cried, "i need to go home, i need to go home!". after several minutes of calming her down and trying to co-erce her into sitting on his lap just long enough for us to snap a picture, i gave up and decided not to completely traumatize her by forcing her to do so. and since i was not about to spend two hours in line at the mall just to have her do the same thing, i figured we'd have to skip out this year and try again next year.

but last friday, since we had heard of another free santa photo op, we decided to give it one more go around. while bryce waited in line, i took ava around to see the santa's workshop set-up and even helped her write a letter to santa. i asked her what she wanted and i wrote it out for her...

dear santa,
i want a w, v and a u.
presents
toys
cake
cupcakes
and a bell
love,
ava

all the prepping and talking up the big guy finally worked... she sat on his lap, answered his questions and asked for a cake for christmas. and little emaline, she just sat there as happy as ever.

i guess the third time really is a charm.