Believing in Santa

 We had the most magical visit to Santa today.  So magical it basically made me believe in the guy myself.

 Orelia doesn't have school on Monday, so we decided to pop over to the Stanford Mall to visit Santa before the stores even opened.

 You can basically see the stars in Bennett's eyes as he spotted Santa for the first time.  He was mesmerized.

 There was no one in line, so Santa and Orelia were able to have a long chat.  She asked him where his reindeer were, and he told Orelia that only Rudolph can fly year-round and the other reindeer can only fly on Christmas Eve.

 Then he took Orelia by the hand and lead her over to this virtual snowball fight game which they played together.

Silicon Valley at its finest.

The kids then got a turn on Santa's lap.  Everyone said "front loader" (the truck we had just pried from Bennett's hands) for a chuckle instead of "cheese."  Orelia asked Santa for a tea set and Bennett asked for "a crane and Thomas (the train) pease."  Bennett was so earnest and sweet about it, and was moderately disappointed when said crane and Thomas did not immediately appear.  I know he will be thrilled if Santa does bring them Christmas morning.  Said "Thomas" was literally just eyed the day before at a toy store, so Santa's elf may have immediately gone back to the toy store immediately after this photo was taken.  No one is losing belief in Santa on my watch, not when we had such a sweet visit with the man himself today.

2015 Santa photos with Blue Hair
2014 Santa photo with Bennett's giant cheeks
2013 Santa photo with meltdown