Santa and three of my children (you can see part of Ping-Ping and Juss’s hat.)

Orville was away with John today (they went to the Army-Navy game with Grandpa.) So I had the other three. When they climbed onto the carriage, there wasn’t enough room for Uncle Bill or I. So, I had to explain to Santa that they were siblings (There were other children aboard, and Santa wanted to know which were the sibling sets) but that only the little one spoke English. The bigger boy did not talk, and the girl spoke only Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese!) Santa seemed amused.

Juss got to sit on Santa’s lap. He told him everything he wanted for Christmas, (except he forgot to add a game system, which is good, because he’s not getting one any time soon.) Then, apparently, Santa asked what Juss was giving Santa. Being a sharp boy, he said "cookies". Then, Santa wanted to know what Juss was giving his reindeer. Juss said that he said grass, but Santa wasn’t satisfied with this…I thought it was quite a fine answer though, and told him so. He said he was going to give Rudolph a huge among of grass, cause he liked him.

(Juss knows there is no Santa Claus, and all about the real St. Nick, but that does not dim his enjoyment. ;-)

After that, we went to see Music Man performed by Middle School students, which was just about like it sounds (no great surprises like the professional quality singer among the middle school cast of Oliver we heard last year.) But the children seemed to enjoy it. It was at Ping-Ping’s school.