The day Samantha met Santa

While we were in Orlando, mom and Jim took us to their favorite orange groove stand.  OMG!  These oranges are something else!!  So yummy!  This orange grove stand has an amazing business with not just produce, but a variety of other items too (special wines, honey, gift sets, etc).  In addition, there is a big farm where you can walk among chickens, roosters, cows, and pigs.  What a cool place to visit.

On the day we arrived there was a special VIP.  Santa Claus!  He was employed by the orange groove stand to greet the kids and do his Santa thing.  We just happened to arrive when there was no one around Santa.  Samantha made a beeline for him and started up a conversation:

Sam:  Are you a real Santa?

Santa:  I could be.

Sam:  If you are real, what are your reindeer's names?

Santa:  Blitzen, Rudolph, etc,...until he names them all.

Sam:  Where do you live?

Santa:  The North Pole

Sam:  Where is Mrs. Claus?

Santa:  Back at home getting the elves ready for Christmas

Sam: Is your beard real?

Santa: Try pulling on it.

Sam does.  It's a real beard!

This interrogation went on for 20 minutes!  Sam did not stop firing questions at Santa to see if he was real or not.  It was hilarious!  After she was convinced that this was the real deal, she sat on his lap and Santa asked his magical question:

Santa:  What would you like for Christmas?

Sam:  Not sure how to answer this one, Sam looked at me.  I told Santa we actually don't celebrate Christmas; we are Jewish and therefore, celebrate Hanukkah. 

Santa:  Great!  What would you like for Hanukkah?

We had the best conversation with Santa.  Turns out he is a super nice guy and has a dream to work for Macy's in NYC.  He wants to be the Santa in the parade and at the store.  He has four children, a new granddaughter and we learned all about them.  I think we must've chatted with this Santa for about an hour before a child approached him and wanted a turn.  

What a fun, spontaneous visit to the orange grove stand.  It was awesome!  And I love how social Sam became striking up a conversation with Santa Claus.  While she believes the Santa she met at the orange grove stand is real, she is still skeptical the Santa's at every mall she sees them in isn't.  :)

Sam thinking hard questions to ask Santa to see if he is real or not.

Sitting on Santa's lap after Sam's interrogation is over.

Christmas 2013

My Toppall team and I aren't normally around the family for Christmas.  Given that we are Jewish, not being near family for this holiday is ok.  More than ok.  However this year was different.  We were staying with my mom and stepfather from Tuesday, Dec. 24th to Friday, Dec. 27th.   Given that Jim is not Jewish, him and my mom do a little Christmas celebration each year.


First it gets funny...

Watching my mom and Jim exchange presents was hilarious.  The presents my mom received from Jim had already been picked out by her but wrapped by Jim.  Each time she opened a gift she gave quite a performance acting surprised. At first I was blown away by how perfect Jim's gifts were for my mom, but then I remembered she actually picked them out herself.  My mom had a variety of presents for Jim (all a surprise) but forgot what was in each box.   It was very funny watching them open the gifts.

Sam wanted to know how Santa delivered the gifts since Mom and Jim don't have a fireplace.  Ian said he came through the air vent.  Sam didn't question that as an answer, despite the air vent being very small in size.

We had a big dinner and Lori, Ben and Rachel came over to join us.  The majority of the day was spent in the kitchen cooking. It was a lot of work, but very fun and so delicious!  I made two desserts; an Apple Cheesecake Streusel Bar and a Turtle Bar. 


Then it gets ugly...

After dinner my mom wanted to take us to Celebration for their holiday celebration.  At 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm they have it snow for 10 minutes on the hour.  And this year they offered outdoor "ice skating" until 10:00pm.  Celebration is approx. a 15 to 20 minute from my mom's house.  We followed Jim who took us a back way to get there.  Only this way wasn't faster, it took us an hour of sitting in traffic to finally get there.  At this point, Jeff is starting to lose his good mood.  Sam fell asleep in the car and it is guaranteed now that she won't go back to sleep easily when we get back to my mom's house.   We weren't getting anywhere quick and it was only getting later and later.

It took us another 20 minutes or so to find a parking spot.  We finally ended up in a condo parking lot with big signs announcing it would TOW if your car was found in this lot.  Both Jim and Jeff begrudgingly agreed to park there.  My mom and I (obviously genetics were in play here) didn't see anything wrong with these golden spots that were extremely close to all the action.  Ian kept saying he didn't feel safe (?!?!). Jeff wanted to stay by the car and keep an eye on it.  Jim at one point felt like he should go back to the parking lot and check on the car.  Basically the girls ruled and we all proceeded ahead with our plans to watch it snow and ice skate. 

Have I mentioned that Jeff is not a fan of big crowds or lots of noise?  Both of which were in full swing as the holiday music is piping through the speakers and everyone in Orlando seemed to have the same idea as us on where to go on Christmas evening. 

The snow is really just bubbles made to look like snow.  It's a novelty and everyone in the town square gets all excited to see it.  Everyone that is but Jeff.  He wasn't amused and was ready to get back in the car and make our way home to put the kids down to bed. 

After the snow fall, it is time to go ice skating.  Mind you it is not real ice, but a special kind of plastic that you can skate on.  Normally I am all about ice skating, but due to a blister on my foot, getting ice skates on my feet wasn't my idea of fun.  Jeff hates ice skating but felt like he had to do it to help the kids.  He is now comparing this whole evening to being on a beach.  With all 3 on the ice Jeff is holding on to Sam's walker more to balance himself than actually needing to help Sam skate.  He keeps glaring at me and I am pretty sure he mouthed the word "hate" when I our eyes met. 

The skate session is for 30 minutes but the kids and Jeff last about 15.  They've had enough and want to their skates off NOW!

As we make our way back to the car we stop at the Market Cafe for Ian to use the bathroom.  Mom looks at her watch and sees it is going to snow again in 10 minutes.  G-d I love her and her inability to know when to give up, but my mom proposes waiting for the snow to fall again.  It was a pretty unanimous "no" and we go to the car.


Now it gets pathetic...

We tell Jim we are not going to follow him home.  We will go our own way and put the address in the GPS.  We just know that getting on the highway will be faster than Jim's back roads.  As we make our way to I-4, the GPS has us go towards a toll road.  Jeff asks if we will actually be going on a toll road.  I say, "No, it's just the direction we are headed.  We won't come to the toll."   Well, I was wrong.  Big-time!  Before we knew it, we were at the toll booth and needed a $1.00 to go through.   I knew I didn't have any money on me and Jeff said he didn't either.  We pull over to the side of the road, right in front of the toll booth and work on counting all the change I could find at the bottom of my purse.  We make it to .89 cents.  Yep, that's the best we can do.  I am laughing at the predicament we are in.  Of course, Jeff is getting even more pissed and his mood has gone from bad to worse.   I think at this point he was wishing he was on a beach.   It is truly sad that between the both of us we don't even have a dollar on us.  As we are scrounging for any change we can find, Sam says "You should've gone to the bank earlier today."  Um, yeah!  That's for sure.

There is no option to turn-around  We have to go through the toll booth. We tell the toll booth collector we only have .89 cents.  Does he take credit cards?  He says no.  After a long moment of silence I ask what do we do then?  He gave us a card and said we had 10 days to mail in the toll.  We thanked him and continued on our way.  I did offer the .89 cents we came up with as a down payment, but he wasn't interested.


Then it got funny again...

We were certain that with our change counting delay there was no possible way we'd get home before Mom and Jim.  Surprisingly enough, we did.  At this point we are all giggling again and very surprised to have a good 5 minutes before they walked in the house. 

This will surely be a Christmas to remember.  :)

A new kind of ornament.

The preschool I work at is doing a holiday lunch with the staff in a few weeks.  I am excited to be a part of this great group of women and look forward to joining in the festivities.  During the lunch we are going to do an ornament exchange.  Even though I don't celebrate Christmas, I thought it would be fun to participate in the ornament exchange. 

Just one hitch.  I had never bought an ornament before.  I wasn't sure where you even get one that would be a little special, not too costly and something unique that my fellow Preschool co-worker would want to hang on her tree. 

The other day after an impromptu lunch with a few of the women I work with, I made an announcement I was about to go ornament shopping and asked if Target would be a good place.  Instantly I was given the inside scoop that even though Target is wonderful for many, many things, ornament shopping it is not ideal.  Given we were just doors away from "The Picket Fence" (a cute gift shop), it was recommended I head down there.  Tami said she was going to Giant and would walk part of the way with me.  Upon entering shop, I started walking around and noticed many, many different kinds of ornaments.  They weren't located all in one spot.  The ornaments were scattered about the store in different displays.  I liked so many of them.  What would make a good selection for the gift exchange?  Should it be ornate?  Silly?  Classic?  A cool shape?  How could I chose?  I was feeling overwhelmed and decided to call Tami on her cell phone and catch her before she left the shopping center.  Tami (who is quite wonderful by the way) said she would be right over.

I took Tami through the store and showed her some of my favorites ones I had seen.  When we got to this one basket, I picked up a colorful beaded design and told her this was a strong contender in my decision.  It looked like a very pretty wreath. 

Tami leaned in close to me and whispered, "That is a napkin ring."
WHAT?!?!? 
"No way," I replied to Tami. 
Tami then said, "Really.  How in the world would you be able to hang that from the tree?" 
"Easy", I said. "It has a big whole in the middle.  It just slides right on a branch."  

Um, no.  It was indeed a napkin ring.  Oops!

Obviously I am an amateur when it comes to celebrating Christmas and decorating a tree.  Now if there was a shoe exchange, that would be a different story! 

Just for the record, the ornament I did end up selecting is so awesome that Tami is hoping she gets it in the exchange. Clearly it was worth it for her to come back and rescue me or else she could've potentially been the one to end up with a napkin ring.  And not a whole set either, just one.