No joke.  Really. Okay, he’s really my first cousin once removed–but a cousin just the same.

No, I didn’t tell my kids that Santa is our cousin–that would just really confuse all of his friends at school and they’d be all like “how come Santa isn’t my cousin?”  And then all the parents would hate me, so we keep our kinship to Santa on the DL.

The skating rink that my mom runs, has a skate with Santa day at the rink and it’s quite popular.  We go every year because it’s nice to see family and where else do you get to really hang with Santa? I worked really hard to keep my kids from monopolizing Santa’s time.  It was really hard work to keep Noah from photo bombing all the nice families pictures with the big guy.  This has been the first year that the kids have really grasped the gravity of the situation.  Santa was there and they could talk to him.  And I could use my relationship with Santa–“did you see how much mommy talked to Santa?” to scare the children into submission.  Often it just made them cry. Especially since they KNOW that I know Santa.

The kids got to have quite a bit of one on one time with Santa and it was pretty awesome.  They played and played–Santa is the best.  He has such a jolly spirit and loves kids.  We are working on having Santa come and deliver presents on Christmas eve to the kids–How incredible would that be.  It would certainly be a Christmas they would remember for the rest of their lives. Santa has quite a busy night on Christmas eve, so we are hoping he can fit it into his schedule.  It’s awesome to have relatives in “high” places.