More fool I. Here I thought Santa enjoyed chatting up the neighborhood kids. Each year, our city sponsors Santa Claus. He comes rolling through the neighborhoods on a hay-ride like trailer, passing out candy canes and, ostensibly, listening to the babbled wishes of children.

But not this year. Not that I blame him  (entirely). It was very chilly (by California standards). A brisk breeze and about 50 degrees. He just wanted to hand out candy canes and get the reindeer outta there.

I didn’t even get to take a picture before all my children had been whisked on and off the trailer and were standing next to me again grasping their candy canes. I stared in baffled consternation at the other children being hustled through. It was a regular assembly line. On steroids.

Put that down as another Christmas fantasy shattered. But perhaps that has more to do with me than the kids. They were content with their candy canes. I’m the one who needs to suck the marrow from every moment. Alas, there was no Special Moment to be had (ie. captured on film for immortalization in their scrapbooks).

Perhaps I need to start heeding one of my frequent admonitions to the children: you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. Or as Matt would say: let’s deal in realities and not fantasies.

Sigh. On Dasher, on Dancer, on whatever-and-whatever.