Here Comes Santa Claus!

"It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself."

Charles Dickens

I so remember the many times my mom took my sister and me to go see Santa at the May Company on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Getting a candy cane was exciting by itself, and I remember sitting with glee on Santa’s lap and telling him everything I wanted for Christmas. I still have several photos of me with Santa in my early years, fortunately for you, not available at press time.

So, of course, we took our kids to see Santa every year too, mostly at Topanga Plaza, as it was the nearest mall to us. In the year pictured above, John had outgrown the experience and was off at a friend’s house.

The girls were excited to go, but when we got there, Annie adamantly refused to sit on Santa’s lap. St. Nick himself came up with the solution: Have all of us join in the photo.

And so we did, but if you look closely, Annie is clearly determined to lean as far away from Santa as possible. We gradually discovered it was beards she didn’t like, Uncle Bill’s and Uncle Johnny’s in particular, but we hadn’t realized that extended to Santa’s as well.

Ah well, she eventually grew out of it, or at least I think so, as she and I went to see ZZ Top last month, and not a tear was shed.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

-Hank

"Here Comes Santa Claus!" from The Saturday Morning Post at hankfrazee.com