Breakfast with Santa

Part two of Jenson visiting Santa went much better, thankfully.  We went to breakfast with Santa at Rusty Bucket and I think he actually had positive feelings towards Santa by the end of the event.  It was really the perfect situation for Jenson because he takes some time to warm up and to scope out situations before he’s comfortable, and he had plenty of time to do that.

At the event, Santa kind of just walks around and talks to the kids at the tables, and will also sit and take pictures with them if they want.  When we arrived we had to wait in a short line while they were seating people, and Santa was hanging out there in the lobby.  He talked to Jenson a little, but wasn’t too pushy with him.  Jenson mostly just ignored him at that point while Lo held him.

As we sat at the table, he kept an eye on where Santa was, as well as watching the other kids interact with him.  Santa came by the table a few times and he remembered Jenson’s name and would talk to him and talk to us, but he was still a little leary.  Jenson eventually started to warm to him and anytime he couldn’t see him, he’d ask “where’s Santa?”.

We asked him if he wanted to take a picture with Santa and he said yes, so when we were ready to leave, we had him sit at the fireplace beside Santa.  We didn’t want to make him sit on his lap because I don’t think he was THAT comfortable and we didn’t want to traumatize him any further.  He was definitely leaning away from Santa, but wasn’t upset about sitting there.

The event was super low-key and really cheap – like $5 per person for breakfast – and it wasn’t crowded at all.  They did one seating with reservations, so we weren’t rushed to finish our food and leave because no one else was waiting for us.  We’d definitely like to go back again next year.  Jenson said he had a good time and seemed excited that he got to see Santa.