Maddie and Santa

When I was at Hyde Park Village on Wednesday night, I noticed a sign for a Santa Village in one of the empty store fronts. It was a cute set-up with a couple of Christmas trees, Santa, his chair, and a photographer to take photos.

When I went in for a closer look, I ran into a girl who was leaving Santa’s Village with her dog in tow. I’d been dying to take Maddie to see Santa this year, but none of the times worked out with the special pet hours the mall had in place or that the pet stores had set up. I asked the girl if they did pet photos with Santa here and she said they did. There were no special hours, just bring the dog in when ever. Sweet!

So I did what any good fur-mom would do and dressed Maddie up in a Christmas themed bandana and reindeer antlers and drove her to Santa’s Village to have her photo taken with Santa.

Only, she wasn’t having it. Maddie is afraid of strangers and, sadly, Santa is a stranger. She wouldn’t go anywhere near him without me by her side. Typical two year old, right? After a few failed attempts, I simply had to pick Maddie up and have my photo taken with Santa too.

Worked like a charm. I even got a smile out of her.

Maddie looks adorable. Me? I probably should have worn different shorts. Yikes. In my defense, I didn’t know I was going to have my photo taken. Oh, well.

After our mini-photo session, Maddie and I packed up our Christmas tree and hit the road.

Traffic.

We. Hit. Traffic.

Ugh. Driving during the holidays is no fun, but I made it and that’s all that matters.

I had the last Harry & David Pear on the road.

What? Derek said I could have it! 😉 Actually, it was more – ‘pear? what pear? oh, yeah. the one from my parents. you can have it.’

When I made it to my parents’ I reheated some veggie lasagna my sister made, some chicken wings my Dad made and a toasted roll.

My Dad twisted my arm for rocky road ice cream for dessert.

He didn’t have to twist hard. 😉

Now, we’re all chilling in the living room with laptops on our laps. Home sweet home. 🙂

Do you take your pet to see Santa? How about the kiddos?