On Saturday, Reid and I went for supper at Melissa’s house. Peter was away and the kids were watching a video and so Reid, Melissa and I sat at the table and Reid played with some Christmas shapes sticky foamies. It wasn’t long before Melissa and I were “helping” her. I am not sure what the cost difference is between the self-adhesive ones and those that require glue to stick but the convenience and tidiness of not needing glue is worth quite a bit to me. After supper, we took the kids to Place d’Orleans to see Santa arrive. There was quite a crowd but we were lucky enough to get a place on the stairs overlooking the stage. I should say Reid was especially lucky since she got to stand next to Ben, who is, as you may know, something of a celebrity in Reid’s world. Reid was glad to see Santa when he arrived but the line was so long we never even considered trying to see him.
On Sunday morning after breakfast, we went back to the St Laurent Mall to pick up the Santa picture. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Reid asked, “Santa?” and so I agree that it was the same place that we’d seen Santa and asked if she wanted to go see him again. She said she did. We got our photo first and then headed to Santa’s throne. For the record, I actually look good in the photo (not usual), Santa looks good (not surprisingly) and Reid looks like she is imploring the photographer to get her out of there (not surprisingly, again, given our history of photos with Santa). I have not yet given up. We’ll continue the desensitization training with a couple of Christmas parties – thanks to our museum memberships – and maybe a trip or two my the mall Santas and who knows, maybe she will smile in a picture with Santa yet this year.