Santa Arrives in Manassas

The holidays this year have been super fun because Jasmine has an awareness of them now. Beginning with Halloween, where she kissed all the pumpkin decorations and loved getting dressed up, to Thanksgiving where she had lots of fun with turkeys and family. We have so much fun explaining these things to her and it is a joy to watch her little spirit light up when she catches on to something else that she loves. She has discovered Santa this year.

We have a family tradition where we turn on Christmas music (usually tuning in the radio to 97.1 - they play Christmas 24/7 until Christmas) the day after Thanksgiving and leave it constantly playing in the background all day and all night. No one is allowed to turn it off, it helps to bring in the spirit of Christmas. Well, we turned on the Christmas music in the car on our drive back from North Carolina and at first, Jasmine wasn't thrilled. She didn't like the music because she couldn't sing along with it. She didn't know the words. But we persisted and taught her a few.

Well, she learned the song Santa Claus is coming to Town and she loves it. We also started telling her about Santa and how magical he is. She expressed interest in wanting to see him so we made a plan. We found out from my uncle that Santa would be arriving in Manassas Friday November 30 - on the VRE train. They were also having a tree lighting ceremony and a lot of other activities for the kiddies.

We decided to take Jasmine to meet Santa and braved rush hour traffic going south on a Friday to make it happen. We arrived with enough time to stop by The City Square Cafe and say hello to my uncle and aunt (who also happen to own the restaurant - for those of you who may not know!). When we walked in, Jasmine was not pleased. She tugged on my hand and said, "No Mommy, I want to see Santa". I told her to be patient. We had a small chat and then off we went to see him arrive.And see him we did! We had front row standing positions on the train platform as the train rolled up and Santa waved at us from the conductor's window. It was really neat and Jasmine was super excited to see him. Alas, we weren't standing close to where he got off the train so he quickly disappeared into the crowd. Jasmine got upset and I promised her that we would see him that night. She said she wanted to give Santa a big hug and kiss! She also said she wanted to ask Santa to bring her a train and a hat and a toy. We walked over to the lawn of the Manassas museum and enjoyed the tree lighting festivities. They announced that Santa would be sitting in the gazebo across the street for all the children to sit on is lap. Jasmine and I hurried over to stand in line. The line was not short.We waited in line for an hour and a half. Jasmine was so patient. She had managed to make friends with a newspaper photographer for the Manassas Journal Messenger and she took many pictures of Jasmine. Much to our joy, she was in the paper the next day and I have bought a copy of the picture to frame. I will post it below!
As we got closer to Santa, Jasmine grew a bit nervous and I was afraid we would have a repeat performance of last year when she went hysterical when she sat on his lap. Luckily, Santa had his missus with him so when it was Jasmine's turn she began to get upset and I suggested that she sit on Mrs. Claus's lap first. She did and she warmed up to Santa and eventually sat on his lap and gave him a big hug and kiss. She was even more excited when she got candy from Mrs. Claus.We went over to the restaurant afterwards and had dinner. It was so nice because Tio & Tia were able to sit down and eat with us. We had the most lovely time. The food was delicious, the conversation was great and we were all smiles. It was the nicest night and Jasmine went home asking when she could see Santa again!