Santa Came to Town

Every year Santa comes to town for a pre-Christmas tour.  He hitches a ride on the back of an enormous red fire truck and he and all his volunteer fire department buddies drive through the neighborhood.  They have flashing lights, horns, sirens and candy canes galore.  And most importantly they have Santa lit up with a big spotlight, so even the tiniest Who in Whoville can't miss him from the cozyness of their front door.  It's a toss up for which is cooler when you are a two year old with a penchant for fire engines or any vehicle with flashing lights and sirens.  I hope that Santa doesn't mind that this year he was a bit overshadowed by his mode of transportation.

I mean, the Man in Red is awesome.  But Cameron and Evan don't really understand who he is.  He's just a very nice guy with a big white beard, wearing Cameron's second favorite color (the first is pink), and he has a funny laugh that Evan likes.  They don't know exactly who he is or what he does.  They don't get who the Elf on the Shelf is despite the fact that we keep reading his story to them.  And they don't even really understand what presents are.  But they know what a fire truck is and boy is it "super cool".

Mr. Claus stopped right in front of our house tonight.  Lights a flashing, sirens full steam.  You would have thought this might freak the boys out to be so close to all this commotion.  Evan was speechless, jaw slack and eyes big as saucers.  He pointed and quietly mouthed in a soft little voice uninteligable over the noise of the trucks, "Nee-nahs! Nee-nahs!"  (Nee-nah is what a fire truck says, so that's what the boys call them even though they know they are called fire trucks.)  Cameron was yammering away, "Look Mommy! Look Mommy! You see the fire trucks?  You see the am-beh-lance?  Hi Santa on fire truck! Hi fire truck!  I love nee-nah! Look at the nee-nah Mommy!"  The volunteer fire fighters would jump off the truck and run to each family in their yard and hand out candy canes.  We gave them our donations of non-perishable foods for their food drive too.  Then we watched them slowly drive down the street.  Thankfully it was chilly, but not cold and not windy at all so we were able to stand in our yard to watch as the trucks left our street entirely.

When it became evident that the trucks were leaving us behind and not coming back Evan melted down with some hysterical crying.  He bawled in Drew's arms, then when set down on the floor of the playroom he folded himself over crying more.  Eventually he settled down into a very overtired melancholy mood, not saying too much, but I know he was thinking about the experience.

For an hour after Santa and his caravan of flashing vehicles made their way out of sight Cameron was still going on, and on, and on, and on about the Nee-nahs.  He pulled out his favorite toy, the Fisher Price Little People fire truck, the fire man and a king from another Little People's set and reenacted what he saw and heard many times over.  

I'm already enjoying this holiday season through their eyes all over again.  When they are this little every year is a whole new experience.  I'm excited to see what they think of the Christmas tree when we finally put it up.  And hopefully they will have as pleasant an experience when they finally get to meet Santa up close again this year.