The Bass Pro Shop has to be my favorite santa year after year. He’s funny. He’s animated. And even though he never actually asks what the kids want for Christmas – they love to visit him. He throws broken candy canes out of his bag and yells “Broken”. And he poses for pictures like this when I’m testing lighting. He’s a winner!

We actually found ourselves at Bass Pro two times this week. The first time we showed up late afternoon and they were done passing out picture tickets for the entire day. It was anti-climatic to say the least.

Today, Steve picked up passes this morning on his way from a meeting which meant we returned this afternoon for another shot at Santa. Briggs had no idea what was going on and although he was really unsure – he never cried. He cries if I leave him with other family members. But Santa was just different enough that he sat mesmerized – no facial expressions.

Cannon was excited but not entirely sure what was going on. The whole Santa concept isn’t something he’s quite caught on to. He doesn’t ask questions or make comments about Santa – he was just happy to get a candy cane.

Bennett was by far the most excited. He’s at the best age and I wanted to bottle his excitement about the whole experience. “This is the best day ever, I can’t believe I get to see Santa.”  He recounted that his friend visited the North Pole last week and he wished so badly that he could go to the North Pole as well. He wrote a letter to santa while waiting in line – he wants a red locker to lock up his legos so Hunter doesn’t steal his and Cannon doesn’t break things he’s built.

Hunter and Hallie determined they were too old to sit on Santa’s lap. In fact Hallie didn’t even join us the first time we attempted photos because she had an invite to go to a friend’s house. I realized our kids were getting old and growing out of some of the aspects of Christmas that were so exciting when they were younger. Luckily, they are great sports and still play it up real well for the younger ones. It made my mom heart happy when she joined us today and even more happy when Santa called her out for being too old – he was generous and still gave her a candy cane!