Santa

We popped into the city yesterday to meet some friends for dinner, and decided to head over to the big Macys near Penn Station to check out the fabled Santaland. Incidentally, it already seemed like Santaland outisde as we had a foot or more of snow in the last two days. Snow makes New York seem like a farytale. Except for the people - they really know how to use the parts of the English language that don't make it into most dictionaries if you don't follow the driving culture. Christmas shopping stress really seems to bring that out, but it's kinda fun since it is NY culture - feels like being on safari. Just smile back and take a photo.

We joined the long line for about half an hour and enjoyed people dressed as elves yelling at patrons to keep moving while trying to make it friendly by interdispersing "Merry Christmas" at appropriate intervals, and various parents not letting their children look at 

anything other than their strobing blackberry camera phone. It reminded us of that classic scene from A Christmas Story. The display was amazing though.

Anyway, we eventually made it to Santa, and he was surprisingly friendly. I was just expecting to walk past and see him with all the kids, but we actually got to take a photo with him! It was pretty cool.

So, we have our Christmas tree up and lots of presents under it. We also decided to use some of the money we normally give to church to shop for people in poverty who really need stuff this year and help put some presents under other trees. It was a great experience and gave us both a sense of what Christmas probably should be more like - giving anonymously to people who have real needs. But it's still fun to share with people you know too, so I think we're finding a happy balance. We are a few hours away from the best present we will get this year, which is a visit from my brother who is flying over from England as I type. I hope we can show him a great time in the USA again, and we are looking forward also to driving to Indiana with him to have fun times with the family.

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas!