Not so sure about Santa

This year I decided not to take pictures with Santa at the mall. I really don't like the mall Santa's here at all and they charge entirely too much for a picture. The best Santa I've ever seen is at the Stonebriar Mall, but that is in Frisco and we don't live there anymore. We have a program here in Hutto that my church helps run every year called Orange Santa. To raise money for this program we did two different nights of pictures with Santa with all the proceeds going to buy gifts for the kids that we help. This first night, our friend John was Santa and he does a great job. I thought for sure Peyton would sit with him figuring that it was John and I would just have to explain that he was helping Santa out that night. Well again, she was having none of it. This is the third year in a row that she hasn't liked Santa....I even told her it was John and she still wouldn't go near him. Ryan on the other hand was trying to grab his beard and pull since he and John are buddies and I'm sure Ryan recognized that he knew him.
My mom runs a daycare program for the school district here in Hutto and she had her own Santa come to school to do pictures with all of her kids. She told me to bring Peyton and Ryan up to her school and try again with pictures but I didn't have very high expectations. Especially since Peyton protested as soon as I told her what we were doing. I asked why she doesn't like Santa and she looked at me as serious as could be and said "I just don't trust him mommy!" Where in the world does a 3 year old come up with that? I guess I'll have to tell John that Peyton thought he looked a little shady! :-) Anyhow...to my great surprise she decided to cooperate with the 2nd Santa try and smiled for a great picture. But as soon as the picture was taken, she was outta there. Grabbed her candy cane and headed for the door with no Santa chit chat! The picture of Ryan was taken one second before he launched himself out of Santa's lap and started crying. So now I have a picture of each of my kids with Santa for 2008! Hopefully next year we'll all look forward to the experience!