Do you remember last year's Christmas when I had a tough time keeping my Christmas stories straight with Kenzie? I thought for sure this year that Santa's cover would be blown. But, it seems that she's very interested in keeping it going. She almost defies her otherwise very practical, curious obsessions and just lets Santa live. In other words, she's bit hook, line & sinker.

Yet, she's not overly hyped about Christmas. She likes the lights and the spirit of it, sings the songs (over and over) but hasn't asked for a single present. She doesn't talk much about it and is otherwise going on with daily activities.

Tonight we decided to have a movie night, so we had cookies and watched Rudolf on DVD. I thought I was going to be busted when, at the very end, the reindeer were flying off into the sky and she said, "Mom? How do those reindeer fly without wings?" Wise parents have taught me this line as the catch-all for stumper questions: "um, what do you think?" She replied, "well, maybe they just jump. Maybe they use their hooves." (Yes, hooves.) Ok, that's better than I would have come up with, so let's go with that.

Mason, on the other hand, is still a bit confused and frightened by the dude in the red suit. We went to the mall the other night when Kenzie was at Grammy & Grampy's, and took the opporunity to let Mason see Santa. I asked him if he wanted to sit on Santa's lap. He nodded yes. All the way up, it was "Dan-ta, lap." So, we waited. We were two away from the front when the story changed, "No Dan-ta Lap." But, we were so close, too close really to turn back. With moderate compliance, and a whole heck of a lot of effort on the part of a very patient Santa, Mason finally sat on a knee and gave us a luke-warm grin. But he got his candy cane and all was well.