The week before Christmas!

As you can imagine this last week before Christmas has been a busy one.  In fact this whole season has been a busy one, 49 appearances in all by Santa!  A good portion of this week was spent at the Dare County Center in Manteo helping out with their Toys for Tots program.  They had expanded to  four nights this year but the first night was a party for the teenagers and they had no need for Santa!         Tuesday night we had the 9-12 year olds and though the generosity of Dare County folks and businesses, each of them got a big bag of toys and a tablet.  Now Santa presented these to each one, and to preserve the surprise I made up something about the wrapped package that was the tablet!  For example, the first one I told her she had a treasure map that showed where Blackbeard buried his treasure on Roanoke Island, the second I told him he had rattlesnake eggs and the third one I said there was a book in it with really thin pages so she had to read it really fast!  Anyway, you get the idea, I was having fun with it! And we had over 80 kids that night. 

The next night for 5-8 year olds and each of them through the help of several churches on the Outer Banks received a bike.  It was really special to see the look on these kids’ faces when those bikes came out!  There were about 130 children this night.  The last night was 0-4 year olds and as is common with this group there were a number that refused to have anything to do with Santa.  I have learned not to take it personally.  We had over 100 this night also!  This whole undertaking is managed by Sandy pace and I don’t know how she does it but it goes off without a hitch each year!  Santa also had a harem of three wonderful  ladies who helped with wrangling the children!  In-between  these outings, Santa also did some home visits.

Friday was an interesting day in that I was at a nursing home and a daycare!  I always donate a home visit to the Dare Center and to Surfing for Autism for their silent auctions.  This year the winner of the Dare Center one was one of the couples that works out when I do.  Anyway his Mom is in a nursing home and he asked if I would visit her when the home was having their Christmas party.  Actually I have some history with  this one because 5 years ago I had appeared at their party and his is the nursing home where Mary was when she passed away!  But I agreed to go and it was a wonderful time, warm but wonderful, then I went to the daycare and it was a return trip because I had been there last year!

The week finished up with a gig at Belk which was one of the busiest I’ve had this year.  Lots of kids and pictures!  And some unusual requests too!  One of the first was a policeman costume and her older sister asked for happiness and lots of money.  The Dad asked which of those comes first and the Mom asked for a 24” waist!  Another little one wanted a Super Woman costume but her Mom corrected her and said what she really wanted was a Wonder Woman costume.  Yet another little girl asked for a Barbie house because she had so many Barbies she can’t even count them!  A little guy asked for a submarine and a little girl asked for a tractor, later amended to a tiny one, please!   And lastly I had a request for a vacuum, Pretty sure that’s a first!  Well that’s it for tonight, I was going to go to an ugly sweater party tonight but I’m too tired to get up!  Y’all have a good night!