Santa said No.

When I was a child, every year for Christmas my parents took me and my sisters to down town Minneapolis to see Santa at Dayton's. Dayton's had an 8th floor auditorium that they turned into a fantasy place along the lines of It's a Small World in Disney World, only without the excessive repetition of that annoying song. It was often scenes from a book like the Velveteen Rabbit, or the Nutcracker in miniature displays complete with moving dolls and sets. At the end of the tour through this magical setting, we got to see Santa to tell him what we wanted for Christmas.

When I was in my twenties, I started going on my own again to recapture the spirit and wonder of Christmas when I had become a rather jaded young adult. There was more involved in the recapture, but that was a fun first step that has continued again for many years. And happily, although Dayton's is long gone, Macy's has continued the tradition so we took the kids again this year on Friday last week.

A day or two before, Abby first informed me that her request from Santa this year would be that Christmas would last all year. I told her that was a wonderful wish, but that one of the reasons Christmas was so special was that it was a limited time event.

Maybe it was because of my discouragement for that wish, but she changed her mind the next day to ask for her very own personal elf. oh oh. Of course, I'm pretty sure Santa can't deliver on that one, but once again, I'm impressed by the depth and heart of her wish and I don't want to shoot her down again. I know that what she really wants is a friend because my poor little girl just doesn't relate so well with other children. the one kid she's probably had the best friend relationship is the 17 year old daughter of a friend who lives in Georgia when Hannah has spent some time in the summer with her grandparent's who live across the street from my parents.

so, anyway, we get to Macy's and we do the walk through of the 8th floor auditorium presentation which happens to be, coincidentally this year, A Day in the Life of an Elf. And Abby just gets more and more excited about the possibility of getting her own elf. She's saying things like, "I will love my elf, and I will dress my elf, and I will bring my elf to school with me and play with my elf..." And I, stupidly, am not saying much but am enjoying her enthusiasm while hoping Santa has a wise way of letting her down on this. The Santas downtown have always been the most realistic and impressive.

As luck would have it, not this year.

This year our Santa had a fake beard (Gasp!) and seemed to be in a rush. When Abby said she wanted an elf, he was visibly shocked and replied with, "Well if you can't have that, what would you want?" Which isn't the worst answer in the world, and probably what they are trained to say, but Abby took it really hard.

And I feel so sad that I didn't at least prepare her for the negative answer. This mom stuff is hard.

But we did have some good discussions over the weekend about how it's really not legal to own people and that even though her elf wouldn't be her slave, you still can't give and keep beings like that like pets. And also that I understand what she really wants is a friend. To help with that, she's trying out for a swim team next week. since swimming is something she loves, and she's just not bonding with classmates in school, maybe this is another chance to meet some kids that she has something in common with. And, she does know, the best way to have a friend is to be a friend.

And so, here at Christmas Time, I will make a wish that anyone who happens to read this, is and has Wonderful Friends and that all of your wishes DO come true!