Christmas video

Santa Came!!!!

Santa did, indeed, make his way to San Antonio last night, and helped himself to some of the milk and cookies we left out for him.

For his part, Jake became a little overwhelmed while opening "family gifts" Christmas Eve and needed to go downstairs to watch Mickey Mouse and unwind.

He was up, off and on, all night. We thought he was perhaps coming down with something, but most telling, actually, was the intercepted monitor chatter involving "Santa coming" that was broadcast around 1 a.m.

When he finally woke up, he was still a little "iffy," but he enjoyed his presents, particularly the "Go Diego Go" Animal Rescue Center.

Cooper, meanwhile, got a teddy bear and a "Dancing Bandstand" that looks suspiciously familiar ...

Jake and Cooper meet the Big Guy

There are any number of reasons to love this photo.

First off is the "Color by DeLuxe" quality of this work of art, which somehow looks like it was taken by the same camera that photographed me, the father, 32 years ago in Florida.

Second is the slightly rumpled appearance of both boys ... see, we'd never thought he'd run right up to Santa and insist upon sitting on his lap. We'd anticipated Jake'd pull his patented "not too close, but not too far away" technique he'd perfected with such luminaries as Ballapeño, H-E-Buddy, and the Texas State University Bobcat.

But no. He saw Santa -- relatively underworked a full four weeks before Christmas Day -- and immediately starting making plans for actually going up and talking to him.

And this time, he didn't chicken out.

It made it fun when we were leaving, and the next family came up in what must have been their family best ... all scrubbed and tied and knotted and ready to look good for posterity. Not so much here.

But the third thing, and best thing, I love about this photo is Jake's expression, which totally communicates the fact that this whole "visiting Santa" thing was not as cool as advertised.

"Yeah, yeah ... take the picture, whatever ... but, I was led to believe that presents would somehow be involved here today?"

In point of fact, when Santa asked him what present he wanted, Jake calmly pointed to one of the big prop gifts under the mall tree next to Santa's throne and calmly said, "The blue one!"

He tried to nab it, too, while we were haggling over the cost of the picture they snapped. Probably shoulda let him get away with it.

(Cooper, meanwhile, just started at everyone like they were crazy ... it's his standard expression.)

All in all, a great visit with the Red Man from Up North.

More Christmas fun, I'm sure, will follow.