Santa Visits through the Years

Organizing my external hard drive filled with 7 years worth of photographs has encouraged me to create another "through the years" blog. This one is of visits with Santa. In most cases, the visit was with the true Santa, as agreed upon by my friend, Heidi.

2002

I was a new mom to a 7-month old baby. I thought the only place to see Santa was at the mall. Fortunately the line was not very long.

2003

When Ashley was a year old we stumbled upon Santa while touring Kuser Mansion in Hamilton, NJ. It took us a couple of years to discover the pattern and to make it a habit to see him.

2004

Looking back I must have been crazy, but at the time it seemed sane. Ashley and I went into NYC with Debbi and Christopher to see the Christmas decorations, and take a picture with Santa at Macy's Santaland. It was an ambitious day with two small kids and mass transit.

2005

We had a nice visit with Santa at Hershey Park the year Ashley was 3.

2006

When Ashley was 4 we returned to to Kuser Mansion to visit Santa. Over the years we've been able to have long chats with Santa.

2007

When Ashley was 5 we took her to Kale's Nursery, a local florist, to see "the best Santa," according to an acquaintance. He was closer to home, and was available more hours, but he was not the true Santa.

2008

Back to Kuser Mansion to see the true Santa. Ashley and Baby, her doll, dressed like Santa for the picture.

My mom's other grandchildren could not make it to Kuser to meet Santa, so we met up at Marketfair Mall instead. Ashley was in first grade, but I was homeschooling her that year, so our schedule was flexible. We were the first ones at the mall. While waiting, a photographer from the US 1 Newspaper asked if Ashley was afraid of Santa. I said no. He asked Ashley and Santa to do a small photo shoot together. It was on the cover of the US 1 newspaper the following week.

2009

When Ashley was 7 years old, she asked Santa for a pair of spats. From here on out, Santa calls Ashley "Spats." 

2010

8-year old Ashley showing Santa the spats he brought her the year before. She then asked him for a sewing machine.

2011

At 9 Ashley asked Santa for a bearded dragon. Yeah, right, like that stands a chance of happening! There is no way I was going to allow a reptile to live in our house. 

2012

This year 10-year old Ashley brought Sandy Claws to meet Santa Claus.







2013 

Visiting Santa a Desiree Daniels annual open house. They asked about Sandy.

2014 

Back at Desiree Daniel's Open House. They asked again about Sandy. He has been pooping too much to take him out in public. This year our 12 year old asked for a trip to Europe. Amazing how the ante keeps getting upped.

2015

Back to Desiree Daniel's house again for a quick sneak visit before dashing to school to be aged 60 years from 13 to mid-70s to turn into Scrooge. Santa noted she has grown again. Ashley has been too busy to think about what she wants for Christmas this year. Does this mean Santa gets off easy this year?

2016

For the first time I did not take a picture of just Ashley with Santa. A sign the times are changing and that I was more excited to see Santa than she was? Heidi also started a new tradition -- she invited Santa to her holiday party. We also saw him at Desiree Daniels' house (timed well so we arrived at a lull). For the second year in a row, Ashley didn't tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. 

2017

It is so nice having Santa living back in New Jersey again! This year Santa had a regular gig at Kale's Nursery in Lawrenceville. We also saw him at the Heidi's caroling party.

2018 

Two trips to see Santa at Kale's because the first time I forgot to take a picture of Ashley alone with Santa. So out of habit. So glad he is close. Ashley knit the cap she is wearing. We caught him quickly at Heidi's caroling party. Santa was very busy this year, but always makes time for those on his "Good List." 

Merry Christmas!

2019

We are entering a new stage. with Ashley working retail, seeing Santa was a bit of a challenge. Kale's was out because they had similar hours. We did find one evening at Kuser Mansion, but nearly missed it because we thought he was there until 9 (it was really 8) and we stopped for dinner after WiNK church service. We did it, and the tradition continued. With Ashley going to college next year, we'll see what happens.

2020

We popped in to see Santa at Kale's Nursery over Thanksgiving weekend because it is 2020 and who knows what will happen! Dr. Fauci said Santa cannot get Coronavirus, but there is always the chance non-essential businesses will be forced to close again. Santa sat back a few feet from us on his throne. We sat on the white bench in front of him. We wore masks when talking to him. We were told we could take them off for the picture, meanwhile he wore a clear plastic face guard as protection. A strange year to say the least.

2021

We are slowly making progress towards life two years ago. Because Santa knew we are fully vaccinated (including boosters) we were allowed to visit up close and even sit on his lap (well, Ashley did). We brought Yoran, our Belgian exchange student, with us. Santa eyed him up and said this year he gets a handshake. If he comes back next year, he gets a hug like the rest of us. We tried to explain he'll be back in Belgium by next Christmas -- no, he is not her boyfriend! This was the picture that made our Christmas card. Funny, no one asked about him. To be fair, we did mention him on the back when we talked about our news for the year.

2022

We returned to Kales for our annual Christmas photo over Thanksgiving weekend. I suppose Ashley finally graduated from being told to sit on Santa's lap.

2023

When Santa tapped his knee and asked Ashley to sit there, I felt he was asking her to model a Santa Visit for the growing line of little ones at Kale's Nursey. Last year we thought she graduated from sitting on Santa's knee, but we were mistaken. Santa is very busy, by the end of the weekend he had already seen over 1,000 children. 

2024

A new twist: adding Anna to our annual Santa photo. Kale's Nursery closed. Within days of the announcement, Carroll's Tree Farm, another Lawrenceville nursery asked him to be with them this year. He greets guests in a tiny stone building near the street. With the space heater, it is very cozy. Given the space, the next family has to wait outside, making it very private. 

Don and I went to see him at Kuser Mansion a week later for old time's sake. That line was nearly 45-minutes long. The kids played while the adults waited patiently. The mild weather helped -- a lot! The cold snap had broken, and the rains had not yet come.

2025

Santa returned to the former Kale's Nursery, now Killian's. As it was a cold day, thankfully he was indoors. I tasked Ashley with coming up with a color combination. After 23 years, I've run out of ideas. She said cream colored tops. As things were quiet on Saturday, we had a nice long visit with Santa. Heard some new stories.

Bialashu the Panda

Ashley loves pandas, so it comes as no surprise that her favorite stuffed critter is a panda. She named her "Bialashu," which means Ash Tree in Chinese (Ashley means Ash Tree in English).

We brought Bialashu with us to Japan where she had her own set of adventures, fortunately most of them were with us.

Her first adventures were at Tokyo DisneySea. Duffy is huge at Tokyo Disney. Duffy is Mickey Mouse's stuffed bear, which was lovingly made by Minnie Mouse. Americans just don't share the Duffy love. 

All over Tokyo DisneySea are little benches for Duffy to sit on to have his picture taken in postcard-like settings. I put Bialashu in these seats. People got the joke. As Ashley and Don were riding Toy Story, I told people it was "for my daughter." 

I had to use the ladies' room, so she kept me company in the baby seat. Most Japanese bathrooms seemed to have a spot just like this for babies between 5 months and 2 1/2 years old. As a mom I thought this was genius! 

One time we left her in the hotel and came home to find the hotel maid made sure she could see out the window while waiting for us.

I suspect her favorite adventure, though, was visiting the bamboo forest in Kyoto. The bamboo must have been 100 feet tall. It would be like leaving me in a Godiva factory. 

He also comforted Ashley during the flights and in the various hotels. He is a good traveling companion.

More panda pictures

11 is the perfect age to go to Japan

In case you were wondering, we've deemed 11 to be the perfect age to go to Japan. Ashley is old enough that the memories of this trip will stick with her for a long time, yet young enough to be considered a child. In some cases, this has meant free entry to museums and temples, other times she is half-price. She rides public transportation for half-price. Even Disney charged her the kid rate.

Plus she has the added benefit of being young enough that her brain is a sponge and she is picking up Japanese words left and right (literally), cat, deer (which we saw a lot of in Nara), and various body parts. Hiroko and Masumi quiz her on these words. Me, I can't seem to grasp the pronunciation for even the simplest words. I just don't hear it, and can't repeat it properly. Reminds me of being 18 and living in Belgium and not being able to grasp the "u" sound. At the time there was a TV commercial for Lu cookies that featured an American trying to make the "u" sound (which I finally did master), hence many people thought it was cute to see if their local American (me) said it like an American or like a Belgian. 

Kids love seeing her. A group of Japanese teenagers wanted to take their picture with Ashley. School groups shout "hello" to her. She is being treated like a rock star, but nicer.

She has been a terrific sport about being taken to lots of temples, parks and restaurants with different foods. She is the best!

Not a bad deal overall. 

Tokyo Disneyland's Animation Academy

When I wrote a post last February about Ashley's love for the Animation Academy at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, I had no idea the class is also offered at Tokyo Disneyland, and that she would take it.

On our first day at Tokyo Disneyland we saw the sign about the class, but wrote it off in order to do other things. After all, the class would be in Japanese. How much would Ashley really get out of it?

That wasn't the only difference. The class at Tokyo Disneyland is by reservation only, and has a small fee attached to it (most classes are about 500 YEN, or $5 in our mind). It is set in a room within the art gallery on Main Street. Instead of one person in the front of the room breezing through the drawing, there is the instructor, plus two people going around the room making sure everyone is staying on track.

Ashley was only one of three kids -- the other two had parents with them, and the only non-Japanese speaker. She sat up in the front of the room. We sat in the far back, not close enough to participate, but close enough to keep an eye on her. Probably unnecessary as Tokyo Disneyland only requires kids under 7 to be with an adult. It was fun for us, so we stayed. Every so often one of the assistants would give us a thumbs up sign that she was on track. Ashley later said that the instructor did a great job of miming what she was going to do before she actually drew the shape, this way she saw it happen twice.

I thought the design looked challenging -- Donald Duck holding onto a celebration balloon in honor of Tokyo Disneyland' 30th anniversary.

As you can see, Ashley did not struggle with the image at all.

The class also included a nice portfolio for her picture, which helped us get it back to NJ safely.

The whole class was only 23 minutes long from introduction to putting the last lines on the drawing.

At the end of the trip, Ashley said this was one of her highlights. I'm so proud of her! 

Cotsen Critix

This school year Ashley has been participating in a program at Princeton University called Cotsen Critix. No, she is not taking Ivy League classes at the tender age of 10-11. Instead she has been participating in a free literary club at Cotsen's Children Library (located inside Firestone Library). The leader, Dr. Dana, is so sneaky that Ashley didn't even realize she was in a writing class even though they had to hand in three writing assignments over the year and each session focused on a different genre of literature. In order to be chosen to be in this group they had to write a critique of a book. Ashley was one of 12 selected. Coincidentally, so was one of our neighbors.

Their final assignment was to write a criticism of Cotsen Critix. Each week they had a different activity. The following is her words mixed with some explanations for those of us too old to participate.

Cotsen Critix

"I loved Cotsen Critix. I thought it was a lot of fun and I wish I could do it next year."

Each session they did something unique, but always focused on books, learning or exploring. In the first session they talked about things they would want to do. Each week was a new adventure. This is what Ashley's group did, but next year's group could be completely different. The group is open to 8-14 year olds through an application process.

One week they turned their names into music through a piece of paper with cut outs for each letter, similar to a gramophone. Who knew words could be turned into music?

A real treat for the group was the week they were allowed in the secret room at the top of the tower in Firestone Library. It is a very dusty room and only available with special permission."I loved the tour to the tower of the library. It was really cool how we got to see something that we wouldn’t normally see of the library. The only part I did not enjoy about the tower was that the windows were too high and I couldn’t see out them."

The group had to read the classic "My Side of the Mountain" and talk about it one week. I was surprised Ashley did not like it since it really seemed like her speed. As part of the discussion our friend, and naturalist, Pam Newitt spoke to them about survival skills. "I didn’t really like the book “My Side of the Mountain,” but I did like that session. It was really fun because we learned how to make rope and what we would bring to the wilderness."


The week they learned Chinese calligraphy was a hit, though. "I really liked the Chinese calligraphy. I have always wanted to write in Chinese, and even though mine wasn’t very good, it was still fun."


She missed a week due to the Columbus Half Marathon. In the end, I am surprised she did not miss more weeks. The class met every other Friday afternoon from 4-5:30. It always seemed to be the week that *something* else was happening -- such as opening night for "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe" or a half day at school. We did take her out early twice because of the show at SVP. Most Fridays we did take out afterwards from Tiger Noodle. A few weeks (such as opening night) Don joined us in Princeton and we ate at Tiger Noodle -- a real treat. "I was really disappointed that I missed the acting session, but I was in a play and was pretty much the main part. It sounded like a lot of fun, though."

They learned a "foreign language" one week. "Elvish 101 was so awesome. My friend (Julia) is a 'Lord of the Rings' fan, and she had just been telling me about Elvish a few days earlier. I was so thrilled to get to learn it."


After seeing how hard it was to teach Ryan, the assistant, how to make a peanut butter sandwich, they were assigned the task of teaching Dr. Dana something. They were given 3 minutes each. There were other guidelines, such as Dr. Dana already knows how to brush her teeth. Ashley taught her the importance of not sticking your fingers in a socket. "Teach Dr. Dana was really fun, too. I thought it was a good idea because she had been teaching us so much, and then we got to teach her something."

One week they had a guest speaker -- a professional writer named Phil Porter. His day job is as a Technical Writer, but his weekend gig is as a stand-up comedian. By chance, I hung out that week in the library and eavesdropped on the conversation. "I liked the stand-up comedian and technical writer. I didn’t know that they write their own jokes beforehand. I thought they just made them up on the spot."Afterwards Ashley said she could relate to the question about how funny is it to keep saying the same joke over and over again. She said there were lines in "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe" that were very funny the first few times, and by the end of the run she was smiling through it, but not able to laugh as much.

They learned about "Hansel and Gretel" in a different way -- through opera. "The opera was also fun, even though I can’t sing. But I liked it because I didn’t have to do any singing, so it was just acting for me."

The best week for her was the scavenger hunt / quest. Well, at least she loved it until she stubbed her toe and thought she broke it. Funny, that didn't make the review. They spent their time running all over Princeton University (with an adult) looking for clues. "I really, really liked the quest. It was so much fun. I liked how each person was given something, and then they had to solve one of the clues. I also thought the sword fight was really fun."

For me, I loved that Dr. Dana challenged them to write. In addition to the original critique, they had to write a piece of non-fiction, an historical fiction story, another critique, and anything they wanted (she submitted her George the Cockatiel story). A few days after submitting the story they were given positive feedback with a suggestion or two for improvement. In the end they will receive a copy of everyone's work, and a few pictures of them having fun together.

The picture on top was from the scavenger hunt. Since I don't know the other children, I chose this one since it only shows the backs of heads. Photography is not allowed inside Cotsen Library.

Ashley won the Hermoine Granger award for doing research. She won this for conducting "first person" research for her historical fiction story -- she interviewed Lewis and Clark during dinner at the Cock and Bull.

Getting Smudged

Back in September 2008 I was homeschooling Ashley. This story pre-dates this blog. She was interested in Native Americans so we took her to two places -- Churchvillle Nature Center in Pennsylvania and Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts. 

I'll admit going into it, my expectations were much higher for Plimouth Plantation. After all they are a huge place with lots of staff and glossy marketing materials. Churchville Nature Center seemed to me the type of place you would pop into once and say "been there, done that, no reason to return." 

I could not have been more wrong.

Yes, Plimouth Plantation was nice, but we caught the place on a bad day, and let's leave it at that. 

Churchville Nature Center exceeded all of our expectations -- even the high ones we had for Plimouth Plantation. Our guide, Miss Patti, gave us the tour through all five stations (birthing hut, garden, games, hunting, and cooking) and answered our questions. We told her we were homeschooling our 1st grader. She said normally when she gives school tours they give the kids an arrowhead necklace and invite them to come back with their parents. Since we were already there, she invited us back, and gave Ashley an arrowhead necklace. 

We went back. Again and again and again. 

Since that time Ashley is now in her third Lenape outfit. She has been helping Miss Patti give tours, has helped Che teach summer camp, and spent a night in a Wickawam with Don during a survival weekend (again, pre-blog days). Last weekend she became an EIT -- Educator In Training. She is only 11. She is not allowed to lead school groups until she is 18 (which is a good thing, because the cannot take a day off from school in order that someone else can have a school field trip). Last weekend she was smudged during the ritual ceremony to kick off the summer gardening season (the weather this year has been so crazy, it took until now to start the garden). She and Don spend most Sundays between April and October at the Lenape Village, unless we are out of town or something else takes priority.

Ashley was recently granted her own station. If you take one of their Sunday afternoon tours you are very likely to have Ashley teach you about hunting. Last summer she created "scat" that is so realistic people refuse to touch it and naturalists have asked where did they purchase it. She is now in the process of creating foot prints. The idea will be guests will be asked to match the scat with the footprint with the animal skins (which sadly do not no have paws attached to them) to guess the animal. The presentation is a work in progress.

Once Ashley reads this and corrects me I'm sure there will be some changes. For now this is how I remember it all happening and that is the story I am sticking with.

Celebration Week

Eleven years ago we realized the middle of May would always be a busy week for us, filled with many celebrations.

I suppose it all began 20 years when we decided to get married on May 15. I love the weather this time of year, plus knew we wanted to take our pictures at our alma mater (Trenton State College), but didn't want a bunch of college students in our way. It was as we were interviewing florists when we first realized our wedding would always be near Mother's Day (it was the following weekend that year).

Fast forward to fall 2001 when we realized our baby's due date was May 13. There was a good chance the baby (we didn't know until Ashley was born that she was a girl) would be born near our anniversary.

Ashley was born on May 17.

That makes three holidays in one week, every single year.

New this year was ArtWorks opening reception for "Unchained," an exhibit that includes Don's first time being chosen to be in an art exhibit.

It is also Bike to Work week. Don has been busy encouraging co-workers to ride to work. As I type, they are enjoying the cookie cake I made for the celebration and will take a group photo later today with their bicycles. Seven employees (just over 1% of the 600 employees in his office) rode their bikes to work this week, including three who rode from Philadelphia to the Mount Laurel office for the first time.

Life is good. We are blessed to be able to have so many reasons to celebrate. As the school year draws to the end -- there will be more celebrations. Father's Day ... Last Day of School ... races

We've got our health, and we've got each other. What more can we ask for?

Animation Academy at Disney World

In just a few easy steps, you, too can learn how to draw a Disney character. Every 30 minutes classes are taught in the Animation Building in Hollywood Studios (as well as in California Adventure). On our last trip to Disneyland (summer 2011) Ashley spent almost as much time learning how to draw as she did hanging out with characters. Well, maybe not quite, but it seemed like a lot. As a result of those classes, I have seen a huge difference in her drawings.

Tired from walking around at Disney for two days, and running a Half Marathon, I was up for taking a class at the Animation Academy. Actually, I was up for just sitting in the lobby calling lost and found trying unsuccessfully to locate my pedometer. Don took Ashley in for two classes. She really wanted to draw Donald Duck, but they chose Minnie Mouse and Goofy for those classes.

Ashley colored in her artwork after we came home. 

 
Don picked up fast passes for Rock 'n Roller Coaster, so I took Ashley in for the next class. I've gone to enough of these classes over the years I thought I was up for the challenge. Imagine my surprise when the cast member announces we will be drawing a new character: Snow White! I felt as if I had entered the advanced class, even though I'm still a beginner.

I made so many mistakes in mine (the uncolored one) that I started over on the back and wished with all my heart I had an eraser in my purse. 

The classes are a lot of fun. If you have not done them in the past, they are a great place to escape the crowds and soak up some air conditioning. Oh, you might learn something, too.