December 1, 2018

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days! Thank you Charles Dickens for that opening! It was the best of days because it started with the Manteo Christmas Parade! It is hands down Santa's favorite event of the Christmas season! It was also  the biggest parade, in my memory anyway.
 Sitting in the bucket on the fire truck I get to see the entire parade pass in review and today that took 30 minutes! The day began with Santa getting his usual ride from the elementary school to the high school in a golf cart that was tricked out fine enough to be in the parade or at the North Pole. It was complete with reindeer Ralph, one of Santa's alternate reindeer! After a cruise of the parade lineup we went back to meet the chief of Roanoke Island Fire Department and his fine crew! I climbed into the bucket and was given a radio and fitted with a safety belt, more about that later. I have always believed that it  is important for each child watching the parade to know that Santa loves THEM. So it is my personal goal to make eye contact with each child along the route. Now I know that I probably don't reach that goal, but that doesn't mean I don't try each year and I'll bet I do make eye contact with most of the kids. It also means I don't look at many adults so please don't think I was ignoring you today if I didn't look at you! About halfway through the parade route the safety belt slipped off so I stepped out of it and I never fell out of the bucket once, though I did the Limbo under one low-hanging wire!

Now as to how it was the worst of day, Santa made a mistake and booked himself for two different places this afternoon at the same time. It was totally my fault and I will try to make it up to the folks I couldn't get to til late!

After the parade Santa was taken the Manteo Elementary for pictures. Lots of great kids with fantastic outfits for pictures! Here are the highlights from their requests! Several FitBits were requested, if that's any indication we are going to have a load of well-conditioned kids. Smart watches were popular today and Barbie campers! Two requests for snakes and one lizard in addition to the usual cats and dogs! One fellow asked for a remote control Gravedigger and for those of you not from North East NC, that is a monster truck that has his own house and playground. So he wasn't asking for a way to dig graves! Another fellow wanted an excavator and a remote control helicopter. Several girls asked for makeup and one asked for a makeup table. I asked if she had any makeup for the table and she said no! Guess she figured it came with makeup! One little one asked for a kitchen! I had one young fellow on my lap and I asked him if he had been to the parade, when he said yes, I asked what time he got up. He replied he was up at 3 and a half! That was earlier than I, for sure!

  After the grade school it was off to Southern Crossing for another session with the FFHS Journalism students.  One thing different today was we had several dogs in for pictures and some  repeat business, including Santa’s favorite elf, and two young ladies on their way to Nutcracker with their beautiful Mom!  The request ranged from the expected to the strange.  In the first category were a Bumblebee Transformer, a kit to make bracelets, earrings while in the latter group there was an animation tablet,  a unicorn that could be walked, a robot Monkey and a robot bunny, not by the same child!  Well ol’ Santa is tired so that’s all from Santa’s lap for today!