Ask Santa...

As faithful bloggerpudlians will remember from previous posts, Alice has been showing little enthusiasm for the cheerful fat man in red. Screaming whenever the WBJ one came within a half mile radius*, I had resigned myself to missing the requisite Alice and Santa photo for Christmas 2. I was feeling quite smug - after all, seeing Santa is not really supposed to be about Alice being hysterical with fear. Plus am not born Australian, so am not quite fully immersed into the photo requirement (although the podiatrist telling me that her mother had 10 in a row from each year of her childhood made me a little wistful...)

However, we had a really good day on Tuesday - we went to the new pad to get the keys and she was friendly and sociable. She went to the creche at the nail bar and was friendly and sociable. We had to pop to the docs for her cough and she was friendly and sociable. Even at the local corner shop, where they have known her since she was born, but yet she always cried and hid when they looked at her, she was friendly and sociable. So I thought, what the hell. We're not exhausted enough from our busy day. Let's go and see Santa. And what do you know?! Friendly and sociable. I had the "Dora Bag" that she was planning to ask Santa for on hand, in case I needed Santa to produce it on cue as a bribe, ahem, I mean a present, but in the end, they just had a nice chat reindeers etc and smiled beautifully for the photo.

So there I am, all smug and happy, choosing which photo package I want, when Santa pipes up, "So, what do you want for Christmas, Alice?"

Imagine my surprise when the answer was, "A cat". I certainly didn't have one of them in my nappy bag.



* Alice, not me