We took a drive on Sunday night to look at Christmas lights. We were told that there was a really impressive house in Alpine. The house was pretty, but paled in comparison to one house sitting near the top of a mountain that was so lit up we could see it from miles away. I told the boys that it was so bright that it might be Santa's house. As we were trying to figure out how to drive to it, we nearly hit a little deer crossing the street. That was all it took to convince the boys that we were almost at the North Pole and en route to Santa's place. Zack was especially excited because "there are deer that can't fly and that was probably Rudolph's friend and it is a good thing we didn't run over it or Santa and Rudolph would be mad..." As we wound around the mountain road, the kids were more and more excited to see where Santa actually lived. And then we saw it: thousands of brilliant lights, a huge house, big gates--definitely Santa's.The next day we went to see Santa at the mall. Even Zack knows that a mall Santa isn't the real guy. But there was still some hope as Noah was telling the boys that Santa picks a different state to visit personally and maybe he was in Utah. Lucky for us, this Santa was the real deal. He said all the right things, had a real beard, wore jingle bells and, according Ben, he had a twinkle in his eye.
