Making Memories and Making our own traditions.

In Orem on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, in case you live under a rock.) Santa arrives at the mall to take his throne for the next month.  He arrives in a helicopter.  I know, I know.  Santa is supposed to be in a sleigh.  But each year his sleigh mysteriously breaks down and he has to borrow the KSL 5 chopper.  Turns out the kids are ok with this, they even seem to love it.  And I love it!  How exciting is it to stand with hundreds of people, sip your hot cocoa, listen to live Christmas music, and wait for Santa to come shake your hand and give you a candy cane?!

As silly as it sounds I want to be able to look back, years from now, and say, "I went to sleep pretty early on Thanksgiving night.  I didn't fight the Black Friday crowds.  I didn't wake up before the sun to wait in ridiculous lines to save $5."  I can't wait to tell Ayla how she got to watch Santa come down in a helicopter.  It will go like this:

On Friday morning I woke up before I wanted to.  I quietly got dressed while you slept peacefully, sprawled out across my entire bed.  I picked out your clothes and made you some warm milk so that you would have it when I took the blankets off of you and your entire body got goose bumps from the chill of our basement apartment.


I woke you up gently saying, "Ayla baby, wake up!  We're going to see Santa!  Yay, Santa! Woooo!"


You sat up and stretched and with your little sleepy voice echoed, "We see Sintas!"


I got you dressed in your new snow coat and your sweet little pink gloves.  You called them "pwetty glubs".

When we got to the mall there was hardly anyone there.  I thought to myself, hmmm, that's odd.  Santa was supposed to land in 20 minutes.  Turns out he was landing at 10:15 this year instead of 9:00 like the previous year.  So we went into Starbucks and got some drinks, you had a vanilla steamer in the snowman cup that you love so much, and we decided to walk around the mall to kill time.

Once we were in the mall I decided that you should make your very own Build-a-Bear.  Out of all the animals you chose a dog.  Of course!  You loved that little doggy that was all flat because it hadn't been stuffed.  You were not thrilled to hand him over to be filled by the nice girl who helped you make him.  I had to step on the peddle to fill him up because you were scared of the machine - it was so loud!  You picked out a heart to put inside of him and she stitched him up!  We looked at the clothes and we even tried a bunch on your doggy, but you did NOT want him to have any clothes on.  So we created his birth certificate, we named him doggy, and we paid for your naked little doggy.

We walked through a few other stores, but I was too busy thinking about getting back outside to really look at anything, so eventually we went back outside to wait for Santa.  There were so many people now!  There were ladies making balloon animals for the kids, you wanted one but the lines were SO long!  There was a band with a British singer playing Christmas songs.  A station to decorate cookies.  Free hot chocolate.  Wheels to spin and win prizes... So much fun!  While we waited (not so patiently; you and I don't really do patient.) you sat on the ground throwing a silent fit because you wanted everything that the other kids had.  Nothing you ever have is good enough, you need someone else's too!

All of the sudden the British man was hollering into the microphone that "SANTA WAS ABOUT TO ARRIVE!" and we could hear the chopper overhead!  It flew around and around, circling the mall until it could land perfectly in the center of all the people anxiously awaiting Santa Claus!

The entire time the helicopter was landing you were saying, "Das a car!"  and I would say, "No, it's a helicopter!"  You would respond with, "Yes, car."

And then there was Santa!  He came out of the helicopter jolly, waving, and ho-ho-ho'ing at us all!  You weren't scared of him when he came by and shook your hand!  You were so excited to see "Sintas!"  And you were even more excited to see his elves following behind him handing out candy canes!

As soon as we had seen Santa we headed to the car.  We both needed a nap after such an eventful morning!

 I love the time that I have with my little girl.  I want her to grow up with special memories of the things that we did together.  I want her to have traditions to look forward to every year!  Even though it's just us two we sure do have a lot of love.  "This is my family.  I found it all on my own.  It may be little, and broken, but still good.  Yes, still good."  I am so looking forward to the rest of the holidays with my sweetest little girl!

p.s.  Kyle, Ayla, and I also went to Target later that day and back to the mall to have Ayla's doggy restitched since it was already coming undone.  It was restitched by a guy with one arm.  ONE ARM!  And he sewed that puppy a million times better than the first girl.  Guys got skill.  And I can't forget dinner with the Lee fam at Wingers.  What a great bunch of people!