Ho, Ho, Ho? No! No! No!

Let's see, so far this month we've had happy, smiley pictures of Liam:

* sitting in a trough of hay
* baking a cake
* climbing a wall
* eating not-so-tasty puffed rice squares
* being attacked by miniature goats

But what you are NOT going to see here is a happy, smiley picture of Liam:

* sitting on Santa's knee

Oh my. Poor Santa.
We thought we were prepared for this. Liam was dressed nicely (more on that later), fed, relatively rested, and amused by the train and reindeer distractions in the unavoidable Sunday afternoon line-up to meet with Santa. An elf had successfully up-sold us to a multi-sheet and CD picture package. Everything was going so smoothly that we let our guard down and subsequently broke a crucial law of parenting: Thou Shalt Not Assume ANYTHING When It Comes to a Toddler.
As soon as the elf lifted that red velvet rope and we were admitted to Santa's Lair...something changed. Liam's face turned red, his mouth opened wide in a look we refer to as "The Catfish" and all limbs started flailing. So we did what any bewildered parents would do....dumped him on the Big Guy's lap and hoped Santa would work some of that magic he's so famous for! But even Santa can't coax a toddler out of a Level 10 Meltdown so as Liam's tears flowed and screaming got increasingly desperate both Matt and I had the opportunity to sit on Santa's knee (donning our finest casual-wear of course), smile as if we didn't have eardrums, and try to get Liam to look toward the cranky elf behind the camera.
Now there's one for the scrapbook.
Fortunately, a kind elf let us back out of the picture package we were not sure would be enough photos just moments before. We do have one sheet for the memories, and because we're tentatively planning to try this again after a week of singing Santa's praises and candy cane bribes. But as of today I'm still a little shell-shocked from the experience, so don't count on it!
Anyways......here are a couple of pictures of Liam yesterday. Both were taken far out of Santa's range.
First, I have to say thanks to Matt for letting my increasingly sleep-deprived self catch a little extra pillow-time and getting Liam up and ready yesterday morning. But my favorite line of the day has to be: "I didn't know what you wanted him to wear to see Santa, so I took a guess." And here it is:

Dress pants and a sweater vest. Just the vest. (Check out those pipes!) And he thinks I dress the kid like Dog Bounty Hunter when he's wearing striped pajama bottoms. For the record, there was a wardrobe adjustment before the Santa pictures. You know, the ones no one is going to see. :)

And finally, here is Liam "helping" put some lights on the Christmas tree....