Santa's Snack

I should have written this a little sooner, perhaps in time for Christmas, but with two children, two dogs, two cats, two rabbits, a move into a new house, and of course an ADHD husband, I was a tad busy! I did however think that this was worth a mention…

            As I was driving the kids in the car the other day on the way home from daycare, I asked Benji what kind of food we should leave out for Santa this year. I saw his reflection in my rearview mirror and he had a look of confusion. I proceeded to explain to him that Santa Claus gets very hungry because he carries lots of presents to lots of kids all night long and he works very hard to make sure that he can get to as many children as possible. To that statement Ben responded with, “He can just eat at home.” I laughed a little, and then explained to Ben that Santa would probably eat dinner at his house in the North Pole, but he would probably like a snack when he got to our house. All the time I was planning on leading up to encouraging Benji to leave a snack that Adam and I could enjoy that evening after dinner, my strategy was failing miserably. After explaining this process to Ben, I again asked him what he thought Santa would like to snack on that evening. He thought for a while and gave the generic answer, “Cookies.” I assured that him that cookies were a great idea, but EVERYONE leaves cookies, Santa likes cheese and crackers, maybe a little summer sausage, and maybe even a little wine…again Ben thought for a few seconds. “We can leave Santa chicken, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and cookies.” So, there it was…that was the plan, it wasn’t necessarily what “Santa” wanted, but that was what Ben thought he needed. I headed to the store the next day, picked up a rotisserie chicken in preparation for the Big Guy, and headed home with a car load of other groceries to get us through the holidays. The chicken didn’t last long, it was consumed that night for dinner as I didn’t really feel like cooking, there was a little left over, but we forgot to leave that out for Santa…we forgot to leave anything out for Santa and his reindeer. I have high hopes that next year’s Christmas will be planned a little better…perhaps I can carve out time to prepare a delightful snack for Santa, some grain for his reindeer, remember to leave the Santa Key on the door so he can actually get into our house. The only thing that I accomplished this year was hand making all four of our own stockings and getting the gifts wrapped in time, although that probably wouldn’t have been completed without the assistance of my niece!  

Even though we forgot the chicken, Santa still came through.
Christmas morning 2012.