Santa!

Behold! Photos of our children with Santa Claus over the years!

After having photos taken with Santa in 2009 and 2010, we skipped the annual mall photo in 2011 for the reasons described below.

We also seem to have lost the 2018 photo.

The final mall photo, taken in 2019, does not have a date for some reason.

I’m not sure if we would’ve had a photo taken in 2020, but if so, the pandemic ended that tradition.

The last three photos feature our recent visit to Southwick’s Winter Wonderland, where the entire family had photos taken with Santa, as well as photos of me and the kids in 2018 when I played Santa Claus for a children’s holiday event.

My favorite part of these photos is watching the evolution of Clara’s reactions over the years, beginning with joy before quickly turning to fear and sorrow, then uncertainty, and finally joy again.

It takes a while before she’s really smiling again.

In 2010, Clara, Elysha, and I ended up on the local news. Clara was crying so much and so loudly that the newscaster on the scene decided to make Clara the star of her report, asking us questions about her reaction to Santa Claus and featuring extended footage of Clara weeping.

Hilarious stuff.

It’s also the reason we skipped our Santa visit in 2011. Charlie wasn’t born yet, so why traumatize the poor girl with another visit? That was the same year Clara, nearly three years old, boycotted Halloween because she didn’t approve of the holiday.

That was the same year that an October snowstorm struck Connecticut, knocking down millions of trees that had yet to shed their leaves and knocking out the power for millions of people for a week or more.

Halloween was canceled that year because of the danger of downed powerlines, rendering Clara’s boycott moot.

Still, she had decided to boycott Halloween, snowstorm or not. You can see why visiting Santa was not a priority that year.

She was, and remains, an interesting soul.

Hope your Christmas was a joyous one!