A Santa sighting

I have a little story to tell about when we were at Cory's Grandpa Adrian's viewing a couple weeks ago. Adrian...he was such a smart, funny, and good man. He will be very missed.

The story has to do with Luke. I had forgotten about it up until tonight. I was with the kids in the hall outside the room where the viewing was taking place when an older man in a checkered red shirt with a big white beard came walking around the corner.

Can you guess what came out of Luke's mouth? "Mommy, it's Santa Claus!" His eyebrows were raised and had the most excited, starstruck expression on his face.

Halle heard what Luke had said and looked to direction he was pointing and said, "Oooooo!"

Luckily, Luke hadn't said it too loud and the man wasn't looking to our direction so I was pretty sure he hadn't heard. Trying to avoid causing a scene and holding Luke back from walking up and asking this man about Rudolph or something, I quickly agreed with Luke and tried to change the subject from further Santa talk. Luckily, it worked for the moment and the man walked away so we were safe. Fhew.

About a half hour or so went by and I had all but forgotten about the incident when from around the corner the Santa man came walking in our direction again. Luke turned to me with the same excited, raised eyebrow expression and said, "Mommmyyyyy...." looking back and forth from the man to me, kind of like he was deciding whether or not he should run up to Santa and give him a big hug or ask to sit on his lap.

The man was lingering at the entry of a hallway right across from where were were standing. He seemed to notice the looks he was getting from my kids and was smiling and seemed very friendly, but I wasn't sure how he would react to being called Santa Claus which was sure to happen if we kept standing there next to him. So there was nothing for me to do but grab Luke and Halle's hands and walk away from the situation as quickly as possible to avoid an unwanted awkward experience.

As we walked away Luke kept saying, "I cannot believe it! We saw Santa!" Yes, I agreed with him, one of the last places I would expect to see Santa too. So I guess the song was right...you better watch out...you never know where you might run into Old St. Nick!