Music To My Ears

I love this time of year. Especially the torturing of children part.

Not physically, you sicko. No, I mean the mental torture that we adults benignly call "the annual visit to Santa Claus." Let's think about this from the child's point of view

• You're forced to get all dressed up in uncomfortable and usually scratchy clothes
• You're made to stand in line without any drinks or snacks - don't want to get those clothes dirty before the photos, darlin'!
• A grouchy elf who's obviously been eating all the snacks you've been wishing for pushes you up in front of...
• This large hairy man dressed in weird, blood-red clothes and screaming "Ho Ho Ho" in your face while trying to grab you and pull you up to sit on his knee.

This isn't a memorable childhood experience - it's a bad outtake from a "Stranger Danger" video. No wonder the little darlings run screaming. It's a miracle they don't spend the rest of the Christmas season twitching uncontrollably every time anyone mentions the name "Santa."

But, of course, we parents continue dressing them up in outfits they wouldn't be caught dead in otherwise and dragging them out in the freezing weather to wail at the first sight of the Big Red Dude. It's a rite of passage - or just another little memory to file away until they leave your home and begin a long relationship recounting the horrors of their childhood with their friendly neighborhood therapist.

Faithful readers may remember Princess G's reaction to Santa last year. Trying to be a little smarter this year, we skipped the possibility of a public nudity citation and caught him at the kids' Christmas party for the King's company. Surprisingly, neither princess ran away screaming, although Princess G made a pretty wide berth around Santa to get her present, while Princess E submitted to a two-second lap sit before thanking him for her present and getting the heck outta Dodge.

So, we had to make do this year with shrieks of terror from some of the other children attending the party, a few of whom you may hear in this priceless video of Princess G opening her present. Not that I've listened several times to snicker at the sound of the little boogers freaking out in the background or anything. Heh heh.

Of course, once Santa exited the building, the Princesses were all fired up to sit on his "throne." They are princesses, after all. So here they are, scratchy clothes and all, grinning ear-to-ear from a serious sugar high and thankful that, for another year, they've survived the trial that is The Great Santa Visitation.