December 8, 2018

    Whew, I am TIRED! This was probably Santa's busiest day of the season and he packed about 300 children into the day! It all started at Sugar Creek for a fund raiser breakfast at 8:30 and it was a good one, location was great and we had lots of kids! The folks running the breakfast did a great job and I only had to relocate Santa's chair a bit further away from the fireplace! I am going to do a run down of Santa's day and come back and go over the requests because I truthfully don't remember where what was requested! The Sugar Creek gig ran until 11 then I was off to Southern Crossing foe a 12-3 gig!

    Along the way I stopped at McDonalds for 2 cheeseburgers and a milkshake, because I figured that was one thing I could eat while driving. Unfortunately they were cleaning the shake machine (Isn't that always the way?) so one of the nice ladies made me an iced coffee drink instead!

So I gobbled down one cheeseburger, made a not so quick stop at K-Mart, Santa runs into lots of folks when he is in full regalia! And I pulled into Southern Crossing in plenty of time. I even beat the photographer there! The three hours there were almost nonstop with just a bit of a slow down at 2:30 or so. Lots of families and Santa did his best to encouraged or enable a picture for each one!

      At three Santa hopped back in the car and drove down to The Baum Center to meet up with a fire truck for transport to Kill Devil Hills celebration at their Town Hall! Along the way I ate the other cheeseburger, now cold of course! There were lots of kids there too for almost the full two hours that were scheduled there. I was a bit concerned about Santa's last stop because I was supposed to be at Manteo High School for the close of a dance recital. I said I thought I could be there by 6:20 which was pushing the limit to get from KDH to Manteo in that time.

      Half way through the gig I got a voicemail that the dance recital was going along quicker than thought and they wanted me to get there as soon as I could. Luckily the crowd stopped about 5:45 and the fire truck with the fine crew from Kill Devil Hills picked me up and took me to my car and I was on the road at 5:55! Now I didn't go more than 4 MPH over the speed limits all the way back and I only hit 1 traffic light. So I cruised into MHS parking lot at 6:15, hustled inside!(as I was going up the walk, there was a family with a little dancer coming down the walk, but they told me the recital was still going on, whew!) Then I was ushered backstage to make my cameo appearance just in time!  And we did pictures with all the dancers and some of the younger members of the audience!

A very full day, so I am at home enjoying an uncrustable ( I got hooked on them this summer, peanut butter and grape jelly, yummy!)) and a soda with my feet up!  Hope y’all are taking it easy too! Upon further reflection, I realized what I didn't say was that it was also a totally wonderful day because I got to bring joy into the hearts of a lot of little ones. I got so many hugs, each of which tends to renew my energy. The light that I was able to see in the eyes of these children was fantastic and I wouldn't have traded a moment of my busy day for anything!